Eric Reynolds

The photo was taken on May 13th, 2019 at the Palace Square in St. Petersburg, Russia. (From Eugene Pustoshkin's photo archive.)

Momentous Leap Cover featuring Left to Right: Jane Loevinger, Don Beck, Russ Volckmann, Robin Wood, Clare Graves, Jean Piaget, Jean Gebser, Ken Wilber, Susanne Cook-Greuter and Abraham Maslow    

May Cover featuring Otto Laske

[caption id="attachment_15445" align="aligncenter" width="1041"] Apollo 8, the first manned mission to the moon, entered lunar orbit on Christmas Eve, Dec. 24, 1968. That evening, the astronauts-Commander Frank Borman, Command Module Pilot Jim Lovell, and Lunar Module Pilot William Anders-held a live broadcast from lunar orbit, in which they showed pictures of the Earth and moon as seen from their spacecraft. Said Lovell, "The vast loneliness is awe-inspiring and it makes you realize just what you have back there on Earth." They ended the broadcast with the crew taking turns reading from the book of Genesis. Image Credit: NASA[/caption]

Eric Reynolds

Gaia Orion [caption id="attachment_14988" align="aligncenter" width="2400"] Integral Map 1.0[/caption]

Creation of the painting Integral Map 1.0*

I have to admit that it took me a long time to grasp the full scope of Integral theory (and I am still working on it!). It is primarily  a comprehensive map of a complex whole while being beautifully simple and elegant. Many of my themes already explored the stages of one’s life in a spiral motion so when I came across the integral world it felt only natural to tackle the ambitious task of translating the stages of development and quadrants into a painting. My goal was to create a harmonious design that doesn’t only touch and transform the viewer but also contributes to inform and teach the world about the ground breaking framework of Integral thought. The Structure: These four shapes are the structure of my integral map: – a spiral for the levels of development that are evolving. – gold concentric circles to represent expanding consciousness from egocentric to cosmos-centric. – I see this expansion as our heart centre (where spirit and body meet) opening up. For this reason, the gold concentric circle after post-Integral is a heart lotus creating a mandala which gives the painting a spirit of wholeness. – the circle divided into 4 sections represents the quadrants as we know them. Having the quadrants was Bence Ganti’s contribution which made the painting a true useful tool to understand Integral theory. The Colors Then the colors! One of the most confusing (and annoying) parts of integral learning is this mix up of colors between Ken Wilber and Don Beck. It’s difficult enough to figure out the whole thing that is supposed to be simple and elegant! Even Jeff Salzmann admitted to me that he hates it every time he has to say ‘amber-blue’ or ‘yellow-turquoise’.  I guess it’s part of life, it just can’t be perfect, it has to put this little annoying rock in our Integral shoe! Also as an artist I never understood the logic of either color chart. I find Wilber’s a little bit more sensible since it uses the rainbow sequence. We said rainbow, right? So where is yellow? It’s a primary color and it’s not even in the chart! That bugged me for the longest time, I could never get that.. until… When I painted the integral map I had my aha moment: Ken decided to use the diffracted light color sequence but in the spirit of being ‘inclusive’ he did his best to match Don Beck’s existing colors. This way some stages match: red, orange and green stages. Anyway in my painting I used Wilber’s colors (if you know my art you’ll know that I love rainbows) and I added a ribbon of Don Beck’s colors unfolding along each stage. The stages From the Big Bang to Integral I found simple symbolic scenes to express each level so that when we look at them we can get an immediate ‘feel’ of each stage in their respective quadrants. For instance, amber upper left is someone bathed in the shining light of an almighty god; orange upper right is a marathon runner reaching for high performance; lower right green is a new city line built in nature with renewable energy; teal lower left is a spiral of people evolving together. This Integral map – created to be presented at the 2016 European Integral Conference in Hungary – is called ‘Integral Map 1.0.’ I invite everyone to participate in the evolution of this painting by giving their feedback, ideas and suggestions to make this Integral Map painting project an on-going  developing theme. The point is to make it better, clearer, to find ways to express the various aspects of Integral philosophy in a playful and colorful visual manner. Throughout the history of humanity art has always been a beacon of every era, staying as a long lasting testament of what emerged in each culture at different periods. Let’s invite the artists to participate in Integral world culture with their visions! This painting is only one of them. I am honoured to be part of this avant-garde movement, participating via my artwork in this incredible evolution! Note: On my way back from the 2016 Integral European Conference in Hungary I lost my Integral Map 1.0 in the subway in Paris… to read about this crazy story click here *This article was originally posted at http://gaiaorion.com/creation-of-the-painting-integral-map-1-0/

About the Artist

Gaia Orion is an integral artist that has gained international recognition by participating in many worldwide projects that are working toward constructive world change. She has exhibited in Spain, Germany, Hungary, Mexico, the U.S.A and Canada with a recent solo show in Paris, France. In sharing the artwork and connecting with others she discovered that these transformational themes are part of a larger visionary movement that is active in society today... as deep ecology, social justice, conscious politic, alternative economy, and so on...

Uniting our vision and natural talents can become a catalyst for individual and collective change so that we can move together toward a healthier humanity. www.gaiaorion.com     Sign up for my bi-annual newsletter

Michelle Josephi [caption id="attachment_14709" align="aligncenter" width="2836"] The Eros and Power painting emerged from energy bursting into joy, through all that is, a celebration of living![/caption]

About the Artist

Michelle Josephi is a Toronto based creative process-driven artist that allows images to reveal themselves through layers of paint, prism colours, print, often integrating nature.

Anna Urazova    

[caption id="attachment_13757" align="alignleft" width="309"] Cover[/caption]

©2014 Aboriginal Nations Education, Greater Victoria School Board, BC, Canada Artist Jamin Zurowski 4 Quadrant Guides: Bear/UL. Wolf /LL. Raven/UR. Salmon/LR. This Totem is a Gift used with permission on this Canada Issue. Please do not reproduce without © Permission.

©2014 Aboriginal Nations Education, Greater Victoria School Board, BC, Canada Artist Jamin Zurowski 4 Quadrant Guides: Bear/UL. Wolf /LL. Raven/UR. Salmon/LR. This Totem is a Gift used with permission on this Canada Issue. Please do not reproduce without © Permission.

Mark Hill l am a cartoonist whose cartoons have been published in over 100 magazines and newspapers, including Time Magazine, The Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times. My specialty is cartoons and humorous illustration for advertising, business and publish- ing. Fortune 500 clients with national advertising campaigns are among my repeat custom- ers…as well […]

Mark Hill is a cartoonist whose cartoons have been published in over 100 magazines and newspapers, including Time Magazine, The Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times. My specialty is cartoons and humorous illustration for advertising, business and publish- ing. Fortune 500 clients with national advertising campaigns are among my repeat custom- ers…as well as […]

This cartoon was given to Integral Leadership Review by the cartoonist for this special issue on Italy. We are grateful for his generosity. Italian Democratic Party (PD) Primary 2012 – Pierluigi Bersani, PD leader is “snatching” the role as Party candidate for the incoming National Political Elections from Matteo Renzi, emerging PD leader and Mayor […]

Mark Hill l am a cartoonist whose cartoons have been published in over 100 magazines and newspapers, including Time Magazine, The Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times. My specialty is cartoons and humorous illustration for advertising, business and publish- ing. Fortune 500 clients with national advertising campaigns are among my repeat custom- ers…as well […]

    Mark Hill l am a cartoonist whose cartoons have been published in over 100 magazines and newspapers, including Time Magazine, The Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times. My specialty is cartoons and humorous illustration for advertising, business and publish- ing. Fortune 500 clients with national advertising campaigns are among my repeat custom- […]

Mark Hill l am a cartoonist whose cartoons have been published in over 100 magazines and newspapers, including Time Magazine, The Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times. My specialty is cartoons and humorous illustration for advertising, business and publish- ing. Fortune 500 clients with national advertising campaigns are among my repeat custom- ers…as well […]

Mark Hill l am a cartoonist whose cartoons have been published in over 100 magazines and newspapers, including Time Magazine, The Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times. My specialty is cartoons and humorous illustration for advertising, business and publish- ing. Fortune 500 clients with national advertising campaigns are among my repeat custom- ers…as well […]

  Mark Hill l am a cartoonist whose cartoons have been published in over 100 magazines and newspapers, including Time Magazine, The Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times. My specialty is cartoons and humorous illustration for advertising, business and publish- ing. Fortune 500 clients with national advertising campaigns are among my repeat custom- ers…as […]

Mark Hill l am a cartoonist whose cartoons have been published in over 100 magazines and newspapers, including Time Magazine, The Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times. My specialty is cartoons and humorous illustration for advertising, business and publishing. Fortune 500 clients with national advertising campaigns are among my repeat customers…as well as start-up […]

Mark Hill l am a cartoonist whose cartoons have been published in over 100 magazines and newspapers, including Time Magazine, The Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times. My specialty is cartoons and humorous illustration for advertising, business and publishing. Fortune 500 clients with national advertising campaigns are among my repeat customers…as well as start-up […]

Mark Hill l am a cartoonist whose cartoons have been published in over 100 magazines and newspapers, including Time Magazine, The Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times. My specialty is cartoons and humorous illustration for advertising, business and publishing. Fortune 500 clients with national advertising campaigns are among my repeat customers…as well as start-up […]

Mark Hill l am a cartoonist whose cartoons have been published in over 100 magazines and newspapers, including Time Magazine, The Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times. My specialty is cartoons and humorous illustration for advertising, business and publishing. Fortune 500 clients with national advertising campaigns are among my repeat customers…as well as start-up […]

Mark Hill l am a cartoonist whose cartoons have been published in over 100 magazines and newspapers, including Time Magazine, The Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times. My specialty is cartoons and humorous illustration for advertising, business and publishing. Fortune 500 clients with national advertising campaigns are among my repeat customers…as well as start-up […]

Mark Hill l am a cartoonist whose cartoons have been published in over 100 magazines and newspapers, including Time Magazine,The Chicago Tribuneand the Los Angeles Times. My specialty is cartoons and humorous illustration for advertising, business and publishing. Fortune 500 clients with national advertising campaigns are among my repeat customers…as well as start-up businesses with smaller budgets. […]

Bill Bates has died. We have known for weeks now this was coming, but it’s still a jolt. To see this man, my dear friend, now gone, his most needed smile and funny story, his grace of movement and always sympathetic, caring, ready to help presence never to be felt again, is so very hard […]

Mark Hill l am a cartoonist whose cartoons have been published in over 100 magazines and newspapers, including Time Magazine,The Chicago Tribuneand the Los Angeles Times. My specialty is cartoons and humorous illustration for advertising, business and publishing. Fortune 500 clients with national advertising campaigns are among my repeat customers…as well as start-up businesses with smaller budgets. […]

Bill Bates, University of Texas, Advertising Major. Illustrator-Air Training Command. Creator of comic strip “PING”. Artist -In-Residence for Royal Viking Line. To date has produced 23 Cruise sketchbooks, including eight World Cruises. Cartoonist for the Carmel Pine Cone since 1972. (17 of these cartoons permanently displayed in the Carmel U.S. Post Office.) His cartoons have also been […]

Mark Hill I am a cartoonist whose cartoons have been published in over 100 magazines and newspapers, includingTime Magazine, The Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times. My specialty is cartoons and humorous illustration for advertising, business and publishing. Fortune 500 clients with national advertising campaigns are among my repeat customers…as well as start-up businesses […]

Mark Hill I am a cartoonist whose cartoons have been published in over 100 magazines and newspapers, including Time Magazine, The Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times. My specialty is cartoons and humorous illustration for advertising, business and publishing. Fortune 500 clients with national advertising campaigns are among my repeat customers…as well as start-up businesses with smaller budgets. […]

Bill Bates seems to be in a recovery process, but he is still in Intensive Care. Below is a recent report on him. Please continue your healing energy for Bill. Thanks, Russ From the Monterey Herald: COMMUNITY TREASURE: Carmel rallies for cartoonist Bill Bates By DENNIS TAYLOR Herald Staff Writer Article Last Updated: 10/08/2008 01:32:03 AM […]

Paul Hughes is our guest cartoonist. artsfx@sympatico.ca. Born and raised in London England, Married with 2 grown children living in Ontario, Canada.

California Newspaper Publishers Award winner and two-time Pulitzer Prize Nominee Bill Bates produces weekly cartoons for the Carmel Pine Cone and political cartoons for the Monterey County Herald. Five-thousnd of his pen and ink drawings from 133 countries have been published in 28 Cruise Sketchbooks that include 14 Around The World Cruises. His latest book […]

California Newspaper Publishers Award winner and two-time Pulitzer Prize Nominee Bill Bates produces weekly cartoons for the Carmel Pine Cone and political cartoons for the Monterey County Herald. Five-thousnd of his pen and ink drawings from 133 countries have been published in 28 Cruise Sketchbooks that include 14 Around The World Cruises. His latest book […]

California Newspaper Publishers Award winner and two-time Pulitzer Prize Nominee Bill Bates produces weekly cartoons for the Carmel Pine Cone and political cartoons for the Monterey County Herald. Five-thousnd of his pen and ink drawings from 133 countries have been published in 28 Cruise Sketchbooks that include 14 Around The World Cruises. His latest book […]

California Newspaper Publishers Award winner and two-time Pulitzer Prize Nominee Bill Bates produces weekly cartoons for the Carmel Pine Cone and political cartoons for the Monterey County Herald. Five-thousnd of his pen and ink drawings from 133 countries have been published in 28 Cruise Sketchbooks that include 14 Around The World Cruises. His latest book of cartoons, Bates On […]

California Newspaper Publishers Award winner and two-time Pulitzer Prize Nominee Bill Bates produces weekly cartoons for the Carmel Pine Cone and political cartoons for the Monterey County Herald. Five-thousnd of his pen and ink drawings from 133 countries have been published in 28 Cruise Sketchbooks that include 14 Around The World Cruises. His latest book of cartoons, Bates On […]

California Newspaper Publishers Award winner and two-time Pulitzer Prize Nominee Bill Bates produces weekly cartoons for the Carmel Pine Cone and political cartoons for the Monterey County Herald. Five-thousnd of his pen and ink drawings from 133 countries have been published in 28 Cruise Sketchbooks that include 14 Around The World Cruises. His latest book of cartoons, Bates On […]

California Newspaper Publishers Award winner and two-time Pulitzer Prize Nominee Bill Bates produces weekly cartoons for the Carmel Pine Cone and political cartoons for the Monterey County Herald. Five-thousnd of his pen and ink drawings from 133 countries have been published in 28 Cruise Sketchbooks that include 14 Around The World Cruises. His latest book of cartoons Bates On […]

Clues

 Tim Merry No more prizes for predicting the rain The pain New starts Time to build the arks Gather now at our community centres With friends and mentors And Elders We all be the welders Of fragmentation On the edges of the new creation The builders of the New Space Station Right here in the […]

  About the Authors Beth Sanders MCIP RPP enjoys the wilderness of civilization as a writer and professional city planner. She is president of POPULUS Community Planning Inc., where she works across Canada with government, business, community organizations and citizens striving for cities that serve citizens well. She works with cities at every scale – […]

Tom Thresher May 6th 1949 – July 9th 2015 I first made contact with Tom Thresher in 2009.  Russ Volckmann, the Publisher of Integral Publishers, passed me his email address and phone number along with a message along the lines, “… I think you two should chat.”  I waited a few days before dropping him […]

     A UCC pastor and an Episcopal priest walk into an Irish pub…or into a trattoria…or into a fish-and-chips joint…we did all three and more actually, Tom Thresher and I did.  And even though we never got around to writing the rest of the joke, the humor was never lost on either of us.  Tom’s […]

Richard A. Couto James MacGregor Burns, Jim to everyone who knew whom outside of the pages of his prodigious scholarship, passed away in his sleep on July 15th, three weeks short of his 96th birthday. He had been in declining health for several years but maintained his scholarly engagement publishing four new books in the […]

Russ Volckmann I met Warren Bennis on Muir Beach in Northern California. It was soon after he had a heart attack. He was trotting in the sand as part of his rehabilitation. Must have been about 1980. I was participating in Will Shutz’s first Human Element training with about 20 other people. We were on […]

It has been just over nine months since Russ passed. There is an immense hole in our lives. At his ocean ceremony in Monterrey California, I expressed how Russ helped me believe in humanity again. The absolute joy and love on his face when he looked at Jeannie, the love and kindness in his eyes […]

I wanted to add a short message of appreciation to those many others who have already expressed their deep regard for Russ. In my case it was his ongoing encouragement to write; initially three articles for The Integral Leadership Review and then later to sign a book contract with him. I was delighted to complete […]

Dear Russ, It is an honor to know you and a grace to belong to the wide and yet tight-knit community of integral, holistic, evolutionary thinkers and practitioners who are bringing into being a new consciousness into the planet. I want to thank you for your leadership and clarity of vision. You have been a […]

Dear Russ, Deeply sorry to hear you are gone. While we have not been in contact for a few years, our contact concerning the publication in 2012 of an essay I wrote about Yin, Yang and Thinking Styles has meant a lot to me. As did the few appreciative responses it got from all over […]

Re-imagining Russ Ten years ago, Russ hunted me down on the internet.  Maybe it was because I had been European Coordinator for Ken Wilber’s  Integral Institute, maybe he just ran across one of my old articles about my “Law of Requisite Contrariety.”  What a charmer! He convinced me to re-write it for the ILR,  author […]

My experience with Russ began in 2004, when we were both invited to become board members for ARINA, and subsequently both became involved in Integral Review. I remember being enchanted by the breadth and depth of his knowledge, and the deep curiosity he had towards learning from everyone and everything! I also experienced the vast […]

Our lives intersected in so many accidental ways that I thought it was destiny speaking to us. We were both graduate students at the University of California at Berkeley. I first met Russ during a protest rally on campus. I just knew him as Russ and didn’t know much about his history or biography. I […]

Footprints to Integral Leadership ‘In a quiet way, you shake the world” – Mahatma Gandhi I only saw a slight portion of Russ’s life, like watching the light from a candle through a narrow slit a long way away. I live in Perth, Australia, Russ was in the United States, a long way away. My […]

I find myself caught up by the horrible surprise of Russ’ passing. And even surprised by my surprise. For I did not know Russ that well, except toward the end of his work-life. Russ was our publisher with Eros/Power: Love in the Spirit of Inquiry, Integral Publishers, 2016.  Indeed it was the wonderful personal connection that my […]

I first got to know Russ at the Vision/Action ODN Conference in San Francisco. One of the results of that conference was the publication of the Bay Area ODN called Vision/Action. I was a member of its Editorial Board and Russ was the Editor. He encouraged me to write for it and provided keen editorial […]

I was talking with Matthew Kalman (founder of London Integral Circle) and the conversation took a strange turn: Matthew: “Russ Volckmann getting a group of people together to discuss Integral Leadership … and I think you would make a good participant” Keith: “Russ who?” Matthew: “The publisher of Integral Leadership Review.” Keith: “Publisher of what?” […]

I did not know Russ personally. We had a few brief email exchanges over the years about some of the ILR content. But I sure was an avid reader of the review. I especially enjoyed his 12-part discussion series with Mark Edwards. ILR was, and hopefully under new leadership will remain, a significant contribution to […]

My heart is sore as I write this letter to Russ. We never met in person (with my only mental image of him for years being his e-tag cartoon). Instead, we emailed and Skyped over a period of 11 years. He first reached out to me in October 2006. He wanted to review a copy […]

Russ was the constant, good-natured background of the integral movement.  Wherever two or three or a hundred people came together around an integral theme, there was Russ recording, interviewing, laughing, appreciating others, asking the apt question, encouraging your writing, helping new work to appear — especially, of course, through the Integral Leadership Review and, more […]

For the solstice issue, we return to the complexity of planetary crisis and ask: how do we best live in these times? What are the questions we should be asking? How does integral leadership inhabit the wicked complexity of the “thick present” (Haraway)? How do we hold both the light and the dark in the imaginal cocoon of our evolutionary becoming?

Dear readers, Many thanks for tuning in to the July 2020 issue of ILR. I daresay, we have a great issue to share. The overall theme of this issue is Creativity, Consciousness and Leadership: Coronavirus and Beyond. Most of the articles in this issue address, either directly or indirectly, the following from our Call for […]

Dear readers of ILR, We are profoundly pleased to be offering the December 2019 Issue of Integral Leadership Review for your perusal. As luck would have it, some delays coalesced into a lovely solstice issue. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as we did putting it together! In the meantime, we at ILR […]

We are excited to share with you the following contributions to ILR’s June 2019 release! Our fresh perspective comes from Eugene Pustoshkin interviewing Micheal Zimmerman! Feature articles from Edward Kelly, Sue L. T. McGregor, Ian Roth, Otto Laske, and Ray Gehani, presenting far-reaching topics such as more statesmanship, less leadership; transdisciplinary higher education curriculum; trans-contextual […]

We are excited to share with you contributions from around the world. Our Feature Articles are from Spain (Marco Antonio Robledo), Russia (Eugene Pustoshkin), United States (Ray Gehani) and Japan (Ian Roth)! Georg Boch (Germany) interviews Robin Lincoln Wood (France), which is informative, transparent and hopeful! Eugene also provides us with a review of two […]

Welcome to this special edition of the Integral Leadership Review on the momentous leap. It has been over four decades since Prof Clare Graves published his article on this topic. Twenty-two years ago I was one of the first readers of the book “Spiral Dynamics”, written by Dr Don Beck and Dr Christopher Cowan, based […]

Thank you for joining me for the first issue of ILR for 2018. Many people have expressed their concern to me in the past seven months that our last issue would be the final issue. Here is my answer. Welcome to another great issue of ILR!  

Well here we are, towards the end of another issue of ILR, not to mention another year! This year has certainly not been without its challenges, be they personal, related to Integral Leadership Review, or the world at large. It seems society has reached a transition point, and history is waiting to see in which […]

This is an important issue, and honestly, I’m not sure where to start. This year marks 16 years since the founding of Integral Leadership Review. At the same time, this issue also marks the passing of its founder, Russ Volkmann. For the past five years it has been a true honor and a privilege to […]

I am pleased to present to you the first release of our April-June 2017 Issue of ILR. We are releasing this issue today, April 22nd, in honor of Earth Day. The human condition, by definition, engenders conflict. Conflict between the inside and out, between self and other, in groups, between tribes and nations, across generations, […]

  With this release we offer the final five articles of 2016. They are: Otto Laske’s How Roy Bhaskar Expanded and Deepened the Notion of Adult Cognitive Development: A Succinct History of the DialecticalThought Form Framework (DTF). Jim Ritchie-Dunham and Maureen Metcalf’s Co-hosting: Creating Optimal Experience for Team Interactions. Eugene Pustoshkin’s Transformations on the Path to Really Teal […]

Eric Reynolds It has been a joy putting together this issue, not the least of which has to do with working side by side with my partner and wife, associate editor Natasha Mantler. Plus, we have an extra full issue for you to mark the end of the summer, not to mention a number of […]

I’m pleased to introduce you the first release of the April-June Issue of the Integral Leadership Review. First off, I have to say I am excited to be heading to the Integral European Conference, May 4th – 8th. Our very own Natasha Mantler will be presenting on Women’s Authentic Leadership Development, delving into the correlation between women’s authentic […]

Eugene Pustoshkin Russia cannot be understood with the mind alone . . . — Fyodor Tyutchev (1803–1873), a poet Russia is enigmatic mystery. It is full of paradoxes, contrasts, and opposites, a kind of simultaneous divergence of the opposites and coincidentia oppositorum, the country of both dissociation-fragmentation and the thirst for wholeness, healing, and transcendence. […]

Welcome to the 3rd and final release of the August-November 2015 Issue of Integral Leadership Review. As this WE-volutionary edition comes to a close, I would like to say thank you to all who contribute to the Integral field. In a time of chaotic global transition, your attention and intention are especially needed. Rounding out […]

Eric Reynolds Wow! Need I say more? Wow!! I’m truly honored and humbled to be composing these leading comments, not to mention thrilled to bring you the first release of the August-November 2015 Issue of Integral Leadership Review. What has emerged is a transdisciplinary exploration of WE space. An effervescent field of creative tension infused […]

Dear readers, I am pleased to present the June release of the April-June issue of the ILR. We have a delectable offering for you to enjoy. This month, Edward Kelly Interviews Charles Handy Michael Schwartz offers a tribute to Roy Bhaskar Sahlan Momo explores language and universe Jordan Luftig gives us a peak into ITC 2015 […]

With much pleasure I present the first release of the April/June 2015 Issue of the ILR! We have some exciting new changes to share and of course, great content! This issue emerged with a theme of “bridging”, reflective of the intent of the journal and the nature of transdisciplinary and integral approaches. I have the […]

Marilyn Hamilton With this second wave of the Integral Leadership Review – Canada (ILR – C) issue, I imagine, the Rideau Canal lock system symbolizing the environment where our authors interact with the leaders and leadership insights that they have contributed to this special Canada issue. In the heart of Ottawa, Canada’s national capital, the […]

Marilyn Hamilton A Brief View of Curating Reticence. Modesty. Loyalty. Generosity. These qualities often mark the Canadian character and our propensity to downplay the adventure, excitement, daring, risk and courage that influence how we tell our stories of accomplishment and achievement. But those are not the words that sprung to mind when Russ Volckmann invited […]

Mark McCaslin Welcome to the final release of the Integral Leadership Review for 2014. In reviewing the year I am totally astounded by the depth and breadth of the contributions made in our quest to discuss and learn about and around this thing we call leadership. If you are a regular reader I would recommend […]

Welcome to the mid-release of the August – November 2014 Volume of the Integral Leadership Review. We would also wish to welcome Benyamin Lichtenstein, PhD, University of Massachusetts, as our Associate Editor for Complexity. Expect to learn more about Ben in upcoming releases. New in this release you will find: Fresh Perspective Nancy Southern and […]

Mark McCaslin Editor, Integral Leadership Review Welcome to the April – June 2014 issue of the Integral Leadership Review. We are pleased by the responses we have received stemming from the new format of continuous publication of new Feature Articles, contributions from our wonderful Columnists, Coaching Tips, Book Reviews, Notes from the Field, Leadership Emerging, […]

Here are a few morsels to whet your appetite for more information about if an how adult development, integral, complexity and other perspectives are being used to understand leadership in this widely diverse region of the world. Our first installment includes an interview with Don Beck about his recent trip to South Africa. We hope […]

I would like to welcome Sue L. T. McGregor, PhD, as Editor for Transdisciplinarity. Sue has published her own work in this filed in Integral Leadership Review and is co-author with me of Transversity: Transdisciplinary Approaches in Higher Education (Integral Publishers, 2011). She is a Professor at Mount Saint Vincent University (Halifax, Nova Scotia) and […]

Welcome to the latest edition of the Integral Leadership Review. In addition, we would like to reveal our new format that is sure to please both our readers and authors alike. With the new format we are moving to a continuous publication venue. We will basically be dividing the year into three phases. Interviews, articles […]

Mark McCaslin What a pleasure it is to present the June issue of the Integral Leadership Review. This issue is packed with quality contributions and discussion concerning the nature of integral leadership. Be sure to check out Elza Maalouf’s and Russ Volckmann’s conversation in Fresh Perspectives. I think you will enjoy their discussion concerning Elza’s […]

Welcome to another great issue of the Integral Leadership Review. What makes this issue so useful are the abundant quality contributions from so many springing from a broad spectrum of issues and opportunities surrounding the notion of Integral Leadership. I am quite sure you will agree once you experience the rich array of coaching tips, […]

Antonio Marturano This ILR issue is dedicated to Italy. Very interestingly, Italy has had an amazing fabric of leaders and ideas on leadership since the Romans: Italy indeed did not only provide all kinds of leaders (from Machiavellian-amoralist leaders to saint and value-centred leaders) but also many Italian scholars have helped us to think about […]

Russ Volckmann These issues of ILR and of ilrParticles are late. This is the first time my memory will allow me to recognize that we are publishing late. What is late? I would be surprised if any of you know what our publication dates are, but this one IS late. Of course, I have an […]

Before looking at the material we are providing in this issue of ILR, I would like to thank our interns for 2011-2012. David Houglum, Gonzaga University, Tacoma, Washington Kathleen Huggins, Gonzaga University, Tacoma, Washington Vivian Pettries, Capella University, Minneapolis, Minnesota If it were not for this team of interns there would be a lot more […]

Russ Volckmann Recently, I had a phone conversation with a colleague who has contributed to ILR in the past and who is in what Barbara Kellerman, Harvard Professor and author of the new book, The End of Leadership (see interview in this issue – a must read!) calls the “leadership industry.” That she is a part […]

In the following recent announcement from the International Leadership Association, Barbara Kellerman is raising questions, many of which we have been trying to address in the pages of Integral Leadership Review for years now. Read the ad and then think with me about some of the key points she is making: The End of Leadership […]

Nick Shannon This issue of the Integral Leadership Review is brought to you from Great Britain. Although the names Great Britain and the United Kingdom (UK) are used interchangeably, technically the term Great Britain refers to the island occupied by England, Scotland and Wales, but does not include Northern Ireland, which is part of the […]

“May your children live in interesting times!” —Curse of Uncertain Origin Another variant is “May you live in interesting times!” In either case, the point is made. We do live in interesting times. And these are both wonderful and more than a little scary. I need to spell out the global evidence for this claim. […]

Russ Volckmann You have been receiving a great number of emails from us recently, a highly unusual situation. The Integral Leadership Collaborative Conference beginning August 15 with over 300 participants is a most unusual and international event. Unfortunately, if you have not registered by the time you are seeing this, then access to the content […]

International and Edgy I want to encourage you to take a good look at the Notes from the Field section of Integral Leadership Review. The purpose of this section is to call attention to and report on the value added experienced by individuals pursuing their own and collective learning and development in many different contexts. […]

We appreciate your help in funding this entirely volunteer publication.  You can help us with a gift. Join Friends of ILR with a gift of US$10.00 or more. Thanks! In recent times, thanks to individuals who believe that ILR is an academic journal, I have had the opportunity to hone my elevator speech about Integral […]

January 2011 Issue Before turning this column over to the Guest Editor of this special issue on India I want to share some of my own relationship to that amazing subcontinent. When I was a senior in college (1960-61) I took a two semester seminar in political science, my major, that required a significant research […]

Why Integral Leadership Review Is/Can Be Important Russ Volckmann, Editor Take a moment to show your support. Join Friends of Integral Leadership Review. http://www.integralleadershipreview.com/become-an-ilr-friend.php Take a moment with me to revisit why I am doing what I am doing, particularly bringing Integral Leadership Review to the world and welcoming the participation of so very many […]

Russ Volckmann, Editor Thanks and Here’s More! NOTE: Send your nominations for the book or article that is the best you read in 2009. Please do so by April 15. We will announce the award in the June 2010 issue of Integral Leadership Review. russ@integralleadershipreview.com I would like to thank all of you who responded […]

Russ Volckmann, Editor For anyone who notices, this issue of Integral Leadership Review is a bit late. We had intended a special issue on German-speaking cultures and Integral Leadership. This has been delayed. I am assured by the guest editors that it will be forthcoming this year. Stay tuned. Below I am asking for your […]

It seems to me that every issue of Integral Leadership Review is special. Okay! I am biased! And this issue has its special qualities. For one, notice that we do not have a column by any of our standard columnists. I know you will miss Keith Bellamy and Alan Tonkin, as do I, but alas we have an issue […]

First, allow me to offer thanks to the interns who have contributed so much to the Integral Leadership Review for this and the previous four issues:Kathy E. McKenzie-Mitiku, North Carolina A & T State University; Yung-Pin Lu, Marian University; and Ryan Schoenbeck, The University of Texas at Austin. Their contributions have been of considerable value and I […]

I am deeply sad at the loss of Bill Bates. Please take a moment and read David Loye’s announcement of Bill’s death and what you might do to help his family. He knew of all the caring and support he had received from ILR readers around the world. Thank you. How are things going for you […]

Please take note that we have some exciting streaming audio interviews posted on the website with folks like Ian Mitroff,Barbara Marx Hubbard, Debbe Kennedy and Don Beck. The most recent one is with Craig Park, vice president of marketing for a major construction firm; interesting where you find Ken Wilber fans. And, in case you haven’t noticed, we are forming Integral Publishers. We […]

Please note: You have an opportunity to nominate the most important publication related to Integral Leadership in 2008. See the Announcements section of this issue for information about how you can make your nomination.—RV This is a special issue of Integral Leadership Review that focuses on Integral Leadership in Australia. It includes a leadership quotation, an interview, two […]

We are in the process of rethinking Integral Leadership Review and its related publications. Subscriptions to ILR will continue to be without charge in order to assure the widest dissemination of the ideas and experiences of our writers and our readers. While I am not prepared to offer details at this time, I want you to know […]

I want to thank all of you who sent healing messages and energy to Bill Bates. He is still in the hospital so if you have more of that, please send it his way via the Integral Leadership Review. Note additional comments about his condition in the space usually filled with one of his extraordinary […]

Welcome to the June 2008 issue of Integral Leadership Review! I consider this to be an exemplary issue that is rich with material for anyone interested in the subject of leadership. Mark Edwards and I continue our dialogue on meta theory in relation to leadership. If you are interested in theory and open to Mark’s extraordinary contributions through […]

As people around the world who are interested in the practice, development and theories of leadership, we face a dilemma. Well, maybe more than one. For example, how does it feel to be a part of a field of understanding with no agreement about what the field is about? Is it about management? Is it […]

According to the Hungarian philosopher of science Ervin Laszlo we are on a point in history of either breakthrough or breakdown. When we look at international developments, it almost seems that we are heading towards a breakdown. International tensions, global warming, beyond peak oil and a mortgage crisis feed anxiety and the pessimist mind. But […]

As a member of the International Leadership Association, one of the benefits is free online access to Leadership Excellence, a publication that seems to be endorsed by Warren Bennis. Recently, I downloaded the current issue and shared it with the Integral Leadership Review’s Management Review Board. I appended the question, “Competition?” One of the responses I got included […]

In recent months there was a renewed discussion of the value of definition in relation to leadership with some arguing for the need for definition and some suggesting that definition would emerge from research. There have been for a long time those who take positions on the need for distinguishing between leadership and management. While […]

Have you ever read Richard Feynman’s essay “The Value of Science?” It is published in a little book of short pieces by him: The Pleasure of Finding Things Out, edited by Jeffrey Edwards (New York: Basic Books: 1999). There is much about the spirit of this man that I admire and much of it is about […]

  Are you really paying serious attention to what this is all about? Maybe not, because I have not always been clear about that in my own mind and behavior, much less in my words to you. First, let me say that it is extremely gratifying that we have over 1675 subscribers in more than […]

Your assistance would be deeply appreciated. I wish to express my deepest gratitude to those who have chosen to provide voluntary contributions to support the publication of the Integral Leadership Review. My goal is to continue to make the work of those contributing to the development of Integral Leadership theory and applications accessible to all. When […]

I wish to express my deepest gratitude to those who have chosen to provide voluntary contributions to support the publication of the Integral Leadership Review. My goal is to continue to make the work of those contributing to the development of Integral Leadership theory and applications accessible to all. When you choose to join this generous […]

I wish to express my deepest gratitude to those who have chosen to provide voluntary contributions to support the publication of the Integral Leadership Review. My goal is to continue to make the work of those contributing to the development of Integral Leadership theory and applications accessible to all. When you choose to join this generous […]

We are in the fifth year of publication of the Integral Leadership Review. It is increasingly taking the form that I hoped, although I am sure there is still much that can be done to make this a useful document that attracts a wider audience in the fields of consulting, training and coaching, as well as […]

We are in the fifth year of publication of the Integral Leadership Review. It is increasingly taking the form that I hoped, although I am sure there is still much that can be done to make this a useful document that attracts a wider audience in the fields of consulting, training and coaching, as well as […]

We are in the fifth year of publication of the Integral Leadership Review. It is increasingly taking the form that I hoped, although I am sure there is still much that can be done to make this a useful document that attracts a wider audience in the fields of consulting, training and coaching, as well as […]

We are in the fifth year of publication of the Integral Leadership Review. It is increasingly taking the form that I hoped, although I am sure there is still much that can be done to make this a useful document that attracts a wider audience, particularly in the fields of consulting, training and coaching, as well […]

Please Note: You will find that some of the articles in this issue are longer than usual. It is my hope that the quality of the content more than justifies this. We are beginning the fifth year of publication of the Integral Leadership Review. It is increasingly taking the form that I hoped, although I am […]

I am grateful to the more than 925 subscribers to Integral Leadership Review. Your support means that we can move closer to a way of viewing and being in the world that is integrative, generative and supportive of our evolving integrity – learning to align our theory and our action, our values and assumptions with achieving […]

I am grateful to the more than 900 subscribers to Integral Leadership Review. Your support means that we can move closer to a way of viewing and being in the world that is integrative, generative and supportive of our evolving integrity – learning to align our theory and our action, our values and assumptions with achieving […]

I am grateful to the more than 860 subscribers to Integral Leadership Review. Your support means that we can move closer to a way of viewing and being in the world that is integrative, generative and supportive of our evolving integrity – learning to align our theory and our action, our values and assumptions with achieving […]

I am grateful to the more than 820 subscribers to Integral Leadership Review. Your continuing support means that we can move closer to a way of viewing and being in the world that is integrative, generative and supportive of our evolving integrity––learning to align our theory and our action, our values and assumptions with achieving what is important […]

It Must Be That Time Actually, this issue of Integral Leadership Review is long overdue. It doesn’t contain what I had wanted to include in the restart– an interview– but I don’t want to wait any longer. It has been a good year since the last issue. I hope you are still out there and interested. And […]

In Memoriam: Robert Tannenbaum Robert Tannenbaum died this month in Carmel, California. In addition to being a pioneer in organization and leadership development, he was a leader in recognizing the importance of the development of the consultant, as well. I believe it was at the 1984 Organization Development Network Conference that he spoke to almost […]

In Memoriam: Robert Tannenbaum Robert Tannenbaum died this month in Carmel, California. In addition to being a pioneer in organization and leadership development, he was a leader in recognizing the importance of the development of the consultant, as well. I believe it was at the 1984 Organization Development Network Conference that he spoke to almost […]

Mission I am grateful to the more than 560 subscribers to Integral Leadership Review. Your support means that we can move closer to a way of viewing and being in the world that is integrative, generative and supportive of our evolving integrity – learning to align our theory and our action, our values and assumptions with […]

Look for the February Issue of Integral Leadership Review that includes an excerpt from an interview with Susann Cook-Greuter, author, educator and developer of the Leadership Development Profile. Note: Due to a very busy month and the illness of my transcriber, there is no December 2002 issue. Mission I am grateful to the more than 520 subscribers to Integral Leadership Review. […]

Mission I am grateful to the more than 500 subscribers to Integral Leadership Review. Your support means that we can move closer to a way of viewing and being in the world that is integrative, generative and supportive of our evolving integrity – learning to align our theory and our action, our values and assumptions with […]

Mission I am grateful to the more than 480 subscribers to Integral Leadership Review. Your support means that we can move closer to a way of viewing and being in the world that is integrative, generative and supportive of our evolving integrity – learning to align our theory and our action, our values and assumptions with […]

Mission I am grateful to the more than 450 subscribers to Integral Leadership Review. Your support means that we can move closer to a way of viewing and being in the world that is integrative, generative and supportive of our evolving integrity–learning to align our theory and our action, our values and assumptions with achieving what […]

Mission I am grateful to the more than 450 subscribers to Integral Leadership Review. Your support means that we can move closer to a way of viewing and being in the world that is integrative, generative and supportive of our evolving integrity–learning to align our theory and our action, our values and assumptions with achieving […]

Mission I am grateful to the more than 440 subscribers to Integral Leadership Review. Your support means that we can move closer to a way of viewing and being in the world that is integrative, generative and supportive of our evolving integrity–learning to align our theory and our action, our values and assumptions with achieving what […]

Mission I am grateful to the more than 400 subscribers to Integral Leadership Review. Your support means that we can move closer to a way of viewing and being in the world that is integrative, generative and supportive of our evolving integrity…learning to align our theory and our action, our values and assumptions with achieving what is […]

Mission I am grateful to the more than 400 subscribers to Integral Leadership Review. Your support means that we can move closer to a way of viewing and being in the world that is integrative, generative and supportive of our evolving integrity–learning to align our theory and our action, our values and assumptions with achieving […]

Mission I am grateful to the more than 400 subscribers to Integral Leadership Review. Your support means that we can move closer to a way of viewing and being in the world that is integrative, generative and supportive of our evolving integrity–learning to align our theory and our action, our values and assumptions with achieving […]

Mission I am grateful to the almost 400 subscribers to Integral Leadership Review. Your support means that we can move closer to a way of viewing and being in the world that is integrative, generative and supportive of our evolving integrity – learning to align our theory and our action, our values and assumptions with achieving […]

Mission I am grateful to the subscribers of Integral Leadership Review. Your support has meant that we can move closer to a way of viewing and being in the world that is integrative, generative and supportive of our evolving integrity–learning to align our theory and our action, our values and assumptions with achieving what is important […]

Mission I am grateful for the three hundred and forty-five subscribers (as of this writing) to Leadership Opportunity. Your support means that we can move closer to a way of viewing and being in the world that is integrating, generative and supports our evolving integrity–learning to align our theory and our action. Also, I wish to […]

Mission I am grateful for the three hundred and twenty five subscribers (as of this writing) to Leadership Opportunity. Your support means that we can move together closer to a way of viewing and being in the world that is integrating, generative and supports our evolving integrity – learning to align our theory and our action. […]

Mission I am grateful for the more than three hundred subscribers to Leadership Opportunity Your support means that we can move together closer to a way of viewing and being in the world that is integrating, generative and supports our evolving integrity. Also, I wish to express my gratitude to the many kindnesses, suggestions and offers of […]

Mission Leadership Opportunity now has 280 subscribers. I am deeply grateful and would like to make sure we are in the same field as you read this e-journal. The mission of this e-journal is to be a practical guide to the application of an integral perspective to the challenges of leadership in business and life.   […]

Mission Due to the rapid increase in subscriptions to Leadership Opportunity I would like to make sure we are in the same field as you read this e-journal. First, I wish to express my gratitude to the many kindnesses, suggestions and offers of support LeadershipOpportunity has received. The mission of this e-journal is to be a practical […]

Mission Due to the rapid increase in subscriptions to Leadership Opportunity I would like to make sure we are in the same field as you read this e-journal. First, I wish to express my gratitude to the many kindnesses, suggestions and offers of support LeadershipOpportunity has received. The mission of this e-journal is to be a practical […]

An Invitation The subject of leadership fascinates me. That is leadership in any aspect of business and life. In recent years, my focus has been on executive leadership in business. Do you want to understand more about the relationship between the needs of executives and how coaching can support those needs. So do I. Warren […]

Summary Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert I. Sutton. The Knowing-Doing Gap. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Business School Press, 2000. Pfeffer and Sutton studied what it is about businesses that make it so difficult for them to implement what they know. The gap is the product of a number of factors. For example, people act on the basis […]

Introduction Welcome to Leadership Opportunity, a monthly e-journal about leadership in business and life. This e-journal is about leadership. It is about leadership in business and life. In both cases, leadership is both an individual and collective act. It is written for those who want to strengthen the quality of leadership for their businesses, organizations, clients […]

Summary Each issue includes a summary of a publication related to leadership. Bronwyn Fryer, “Leading Through Rough Times: An Interview with Novell’s Eric Schmidt,” Harvard Business Review, May 2001. Novell is like many other high tech companies who have been experiencing the roller coaster ride of business in this new millennium. In this interview Eric […]

Mission I am grateful to the subscribers to Leadership Opportunity. Your support has meant that we can move closer to a way of viewing and being in the world that is integrating, generative and supports our evolving integrity–learning to align our theory and our action. Also, I am grateful for the many kindnesses, suggestions and offers […]

President Elect Joe Biden (December 19, 2020): “Just like we need to be a unified nation in response to COVID-19, we need a unified national response to climate change. We need to meet the moment with the urgency it demands as you would during national emergency. And from this crisis, from these crises, I should […]

On leadership: “To me, leadership is not about necessarily being the loudest in the room, but instead being the bridge, or the thing that is missing in the discussion and trying to build a consensus from there.” On corona virus: “The worst case scenario is simply intolerable. It would represent the greatest loss of New Zealander’s lives […]

“The world doesn’t belong to leaders. The world belongs to all humanity.” HH Dalai Lama Mar 9, 2017

Gandhi We but mirror the world. All the tendencies present in the outer world are to be found in the world of our body. If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him. This […]

“I’m not afraid of the word revolution, I’m afraid of a world that’s becoming less courageous and authentic. I’ve always believed that in a world full of critics, cynics, and fearmongers, taking off the armor and rumbling with vulnerability, living into our values, braving trust with open hearts, and learning to rise so we can […]

“As man moves from the sixth or personalistic level, the level of being with self and other men, the seventh level, the cognitive level of existence, a chasm of unbelievable depth of meaning is crossed. The gap between the sixth level and the seventh level is the gap between getting and giving, taking and contributing, […]

“By continuing to use terms such as leader, leading, and leadership, as though they mean the same thing, we shall continue the confusion that has existed in not only the academic view of leading–leader–leadership, but in developing individuals to perform in leader roles and in developing human systems to support effective leading for sustainability, generativity, […]

“My aspiration is to bring the voices of integral/developmental/transdisciplinary/complexity oriented thinkers and writers to a larger audience. I seek to bridge the gaps between cultures, domains, worldviews, thinkers and doers…” Russ Volckmann, Linked In Account

“A leader. . .is like a shepherd. He stays behind the flock, letting the most nimble go out ahead, whereupon the others follow, not realizing that all along they are being directed from behind.” Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom (1994)

Sagan, C. (1994) Pale blue dot : a vision of the human future in space. New York: Random House. Consider again that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our […]

Martin Luther King Jr., Why We Can’t Wait, 1963 “A social movement that only moves people is merely a revolt. A movement that changes both people and institutions is a revolution.” “We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.” “Unity has […]

“The Integral Self is both fierce and compassionate. Fierce compassion heals. David Whyte says: ‘The blade is so sharp it cuts things together, not apart’ (Whyte, 1997). The inner work of the Integral transformation is shadow work – work that integrates shadow elements into a larger, more inclusion construction of the self. This ‘cutting things […]

“Imagine so valuing the importance of developing people’s capabilities that you design a culture that itself immersively sweeps every member of the organization into an ongoing developmental journey in the course of working every day. Imagine making the organization itself – and not separate, extra benefits – the incubator of capability. Imagine hardwiring development into […]

We are accustomed to holding a gross and narrow anti-philosophical view on life as a result of random play of only Earth-bound forces. This is, most certainly, wrong. Life as we see now is, to a far greater extent, a cosmic phenomenon, rather than only Earth-based. It was created by the influence of creative dynamics […]

Lev Gordon “Giving words to one’s own stance, explicitly outlining and defining one’s position always, by default principles of our human universe, brings forth antagonistic counterreaction. Hidden, implicitly performed action, even if it is large-scale, attracts less attention: It softly enters the world and perpetuates itself as water soaking into fields, while ice stays on […]

“Wholeness does not mean perfection: it means embracing brokenness as an integral part of life. Knowing this gives me hope that human wholeness – mine, yours, ours – need not be a utopian dream, if we can use devastation as a seedbed for new life.” from: Palmer, Parker J. A Hidden Wholeness: The Journey Toward […]

“In the future, there will be no female leaders. There will just be leaders.” Sheryl Sandberg, Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead

Leadership is a “socially constructed… common process in which the organizational members find themselves and through which they negotiate the becoming of commonly shared phenomena.” – Petrm Salovaara, From Leader-Centricity Toward Leadership – A Hermeneutic Narrative Study, Helskinki,Finalnd: University of Tampere, 2011   “… leadership is an aesthetic, embodied phenomenon, a subjective ‘felt experience’, rather […]

Stakeholder dialogues will propel you to the next step, designing experiments that will benefit not just you but all the important people in your life. This is, after all, the leadership challenge: to choose a meaningful direction, based on knowing yourself and your people, and then to gain commitment to its vigorous pursuit. Stewart D. […]

This ability to understand that society is not just a multiplication of you but includes many who are not like you is vital to a healthy society. This is what we are given a chance to do in Canada, because we see so many people who are not like ourselves, who do not come from […]

Canada has no goals or direction, yet shares so much of the American character and experience that the role of dialogue and liaison has become entirely natural to Canadians wherever they are …. In the age of the electronic information environment the big nations of the First World are losing both their identities and goals […]

For students of leadership and even more urgent question arises. Supposing we could find species wide commonalities among hierarchies of wants and needs, could we also find common stages and levels of moral development and reasoning emerging out of those wants and needs? If so, we could assume, and foundations for leadership. If we define […]

An unconscious conspiracy in contemporary society prevents leaders — no matter what their original vision — from taking charge within any organization, an entrenched bureaucracy with a commitment to the status quo undermines the unwary leader. To make matters worse, certain social forces — increasing tension between individual rights and the common good, for example — discourage […]

Someone is sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago. Warren Buffett

“It is better to lead from behind and to put others in front, especially when you celebrate victory when nice things occur. You take the front line when there is danger. Then people will appreciate your leadership.” – Nelson Mandela

Movements don’t emerge because everyone suddenly decides to face the same direction at once. They rely on social patterns that begin as the habits of friendship, grow through the habits of communities (power of weak ties) and are sustained by new habits that change participants’ sense of self. – Charles Duhigg, The Power of Habit

“If a rhinoceros were to enter this restaurant now, there is no denying he would have great power here. But I should be the first to rise and assure him that he had no authority whatever.” — G.K. Chesterton to Alexander Woollcott

Your life is your message. Leadership by example is not only the most pervasive but also the most enduring form of leadership. And because the world is becoming more interconnected, standards of leadership have an impact that extend around the globe. Now, as never before, a higher standard of leadership will serve us all. ~ […]

“Presence – or its lack – has enormous consequences for leaders. Presence grants genuine leadership authority by building trust and inspiring others. This is quite a bit different from the leadership that is conferred by position, title, or status” Richard Strozzi-Heckler President,Strozi Institute Author, The Leadership Dojo

“No institution can possibly survive if it needs geniuses or supermen to manage it. It must be organized in such a way as to be able to get along under a leadership composed of average human beings.”  ~Peter Drucker

“Leadership is not defined by the exercise of power but by the capacity to increase the sense of power among those led. The most essential work of the leader is to create more leaders.”  ~Mary Parker Follett, The Creative Experience, 1924

Leadership is like a panicle of rice because at the height of the season, at the height of its power, it is beautiful, it is green, it nourishes the world, it reaches for the heavens; but right before the harvest it bends over with great gratitude and humility to touch the earth from where it […]

“The nature of system is certainty; the nature of structure is security; the nature of beauty is order. These define the ‘oughts’ of a good society. When the ‘oughts’ become ‘musts’, they become tools of oppression and unleash great sorrow. When that sad day arrives, the way to regenerate the society is not to defy or […]

“The message of heroic leadership is about the sterling character of the leader, not the substance of the issues that the public is called to decide. And the temptation of heroic leadership is the extension of power and the escaping of public accountability. Heroic leaders are one of democracy’s leviathans, and the large shadows they […]

“There are no great people in this world, only great challenges which ordinary people rise to meet.” ~ William Frederick Halsey, Jr.

“The problem with even the best-intentioned recommendations for leadership competence in intercultural contexts is that they still have a cultural bias. In other words, the very concept of leadership is culturally bound. Leadership is not what you think of as leadership everywhere else on this planet.” ~ E.S. Wibbeke

The skillful leader…does not rely on personal force; he controls his group not by dominating but by expressing it. He stimulates what is best inus; he univies and concentrates what we feel only gropingly and scatteringly, but he never gets away from the current of which we and he are both an integral part. He […]

Leading from a more integral place is not something one can just choose to do. One can grow more sensitive to what is involved, but ultimately it is predicted on finding a newly integral relationship to authority in oneself. This is not easy business. It asks a major kind of growing up. ~Charles M. Johnston, Necessary […]

“…leadership will be understood as the collective capacity of all members of an organization to accomplish such critical tasks as setting direction, creating alignment, and gaining commitment. Leadership development based on this paradigm is more difficult to design and implement than those that have been popular for the last several decades in which the focus […]

In writing about leadership in the American Indian Nations: …anyone can begin to tell the story in new ways. Ideally, the process will involve elected leadership; after all, elected leaders usually hold positions of influence and may be able to make things happen quickly. But seizing the future can begin anywhere in the community, and […]

“The CEO and his executives often have difficulty in letting go of tendencies towards heroic leadership that are inherent in our society. Heroic leaders, who are usually male, often resort to underhand means in order to win and look good. These behaviours support the development of FIBS* cultures. The heroic leader is often driven by […]

Here is the very heart and soul of the matter of leadership: If you seek to lead, invest 50% of your time (attention) leading yourself-your own purpose, ethics, principles, motivation, conduct. Invest at least 20% leading those with authority over youand 15% leading your peers – Use the remainder to induce those you “work for” […]

[E]nvironmental leadership and leaders…are critical to the future of human well-being world-wide. Therefore, there is no more urgent task than to encourage and nurture the next generation of environmental leaders. The most important message we have to offer is that environmental leadership consists largely of learned skills and styles and that learning needs to begin […]

Leadership in complex systems “takes place during interactions among agents when those interactions lead to changes in the way agents expect to relate to one another in the future.” Source: Hazy, J. K., Goldstein, J. & Lichtenstein, B. B. (2007). Complex systems leadership theory: An introduction. In J. K. Hazy, J.Goldstein, & B. B. Lichtenstein […]

“Leadership, simply put, raises our consciousness, because we cannot solve the problems and challenges we face with the same thinking that caused them. Leadership isn’t the propagation of our own ideas, constructs and theories, however complex they might be. It is the raising of consciousness—in body, mind and spirit—in self, culture and society. “Leadership involves […]

“De ontwikkelingsruimte van een organisatie/land wordt bepaald door het bewustzijnsveld van haar leiders, de groeisnelheid door de toewijding van haar medewerkers.” “The growth potential (in terms of quality rather than quantity) of a country or organization is determined by the level of consciousness of its leaders and the growth rate by the dedication of its […]

“The old leadership model was control—the from the top of the pyramid down concept. The new model is a participatory model, which is funneling over to teams and the spirit of synergetic thinking. The leaders of today are living in a time of constant change and they cannot effectively lead companies or countries through these […]

“If we place a value on the development of consciousness, we automatically create a hierarchy: those with a more evolved and inclusive perspective have a greater responsibility to work for the development of the whole. That means that we privileged postmoderns have to take the responsibility of being the elite to push the leading edge […]

“Greatness in leadership, that is, human authenticity, is not only a matter for individuals. Quite to the contrary, it is best accomplished in groups and leads therefore to in-depth group growth and to team development. Group and individual growth are systemically interrelated. “People must share with each other their experiences of authentic behavior, their inner […]

“Leadership” is a concept we often resist. It seems immodest, even self-aggrandizing, to think of ourselves as leaders. But if it is true that we are made for community, then leadership is everyone’s vocation, and it can be an evasion to insist that it is not. When we live in the close-knit ecosystem called community, […]

“In the past, leaders were those who knew the right answers. Today, leaders are those who know the right questions.” ~Mark Sanborn

At one time I got interested in trying to understand how great leaders created enormous social change – take Christ, take Muhammad, Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Joan of Arc, Martin Luther King, Jr. When you look back at their history, almost without exception they were nobodies. Nobody! Gandhi was just a mediocre attorney who got thrown […]

“The interaction between leaders and followers does not take place in a vacuum. It is embedded in a historical or cultural context. It has an institutional setting. And these surrounding circumstances substantially affect not only the nature of the interaction but also the leadership attributes that are effective.” ~James W. Gardner (1990). On Leadership. New York: […]

Leadership in a postmodern world can come from outside one’s immediate group, bottom-up or outside the organization altogether. There are no enduring authorities; hence anyone with a better idea and the courage to promote it can show leadership. Such leadership is an occasional act, not a role to be monopolized. It is also more democratic […]

“Whenever we think in terms of ‘leadership,’ we create a dichotomy: (1) leaders, a select and privileged few, and (2) followers, the vast majority. There follows the implicit judgment that leaders are some how superior to followers. So you get secrecy, distrust, overindulgence, and the inevitable sacrifice of those below for the benefit of those […]

“It is not leadership from any one person that is required, it is an aspect of leadership each of us summons from within. In this respect, the same qualities we have sought in one person can be found distributed among many people who learn, in community, to exercise their “leadership” at appropriate moments. This occurs […]

“Leadership is a practice not a position. It is a practice of building influence relationships to create a movement for transforming change. My issue with most of the leadership stuff is that the followers—more appropriate in the idea economy or society to say collaborators or partners—are not considered in the leadership dynamic. This is counter-intuitive […]

“CEOs need to focus first on changing themselves before they try to change the rest of the company. The process resembles an archaeological dig, or at least it did for me. As I uncovered and solved one problem, I almost invariably exposed another, deeper problem. As I gained one insight and mastered one situation, another […]

“It is an assumption that leadership starts with a capital ‘L’ and that when you’re on top you’re automatically a leader. It’s part of a larger hero myth that inhibits us from seizing the initiative. ‘It’s not my job,’ we say, and we wait for someone to ride in and save us.” ~Kouzes and Posner, […]

“There is a tendency to be dependent on individual leaders. To me, it is important to develop collective leadership. I don’t like to get credit for all that we achieved. Millions of people contributed to the results that we achieved…I like more egalitarian relationships. I especially like to orient people to learn.” ~Anatakas Mockus, Mayor […]

“…Last winter BusinessWeek ran a cover story, ‘Waking Up from the American Dream,’ that detailed how most Americans have a small and diminishing chance of moving up in socioeconomic class. “Evidently, Americans accept this arrangement – at any rate they keep returning to office the politicians whose policies reinforce the divisions between the haves and have-nots. But […]

Effective executives as emergent property Earl Mardle nails it. But so long as there is demand from insecure executives for rules they’re supposed to follow, there will be gurus to provide them with exactly that. ~Sébastien Paquet “My kvetch about management gurus is that they observe patterns of behaviour in successful people,enterprises, etc. and then convert […]

Five simultaneous conversations are essential to the art and discipline of leadership… The first courageous conversation is the conversation with the unknown future – what lies over the horizon…” The second conversation is the courageous conversation you’re not having with a present customer, a patient, a vendor, who all represent the future as it’s lapping […]

Leaders are not born ~ they are self-created. Leadership is not a heavy, difficult and isolating experience ~ it is rich with the joy of collaborating with others to create the newest new. Leadership does not mean you’ll be the first to be judged and persecuted when the results come in ~ it means you lead the wave […]

“.seeking for personal salvation is anyway the wrong road to personal salvation. The only real path.was the path set forth in the Japanese movie ‘Ikiru,’ i.e., salvation via hard work and total commitment to doing well the job that fate or personal destiny calls you to do, or any important job that ‘calls for’ doing.” ~Abraham H. […]

“Executive team members fail to devote enough attention to developing team cohesion….Often, issues pile up which are never dealt with, thus damaging the fabric of the team. Top teams need regular health checks but there’s a special skill in being able to see clearly what is going on in a team. The CEO has to […]

“‘Chaos’ is a frightening word, but you will have to get used to it if you desire or hold leadership positions in today’s organizations. Snuggle deeper into the lexicographical security blanket. If you prefer ‘turbulence’ or ‘unrest,’ ‘conflict’ or ‘confusion’ – fine. Whatever term you’ve chosen, my point is that stability is no longer the […]

“Why of course the people don’t want war. Why should some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best he can expect is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally the common people don’t want war – neither in Russia, nor England, nor for […]

“The reason leaders must mediate values is that corporations have reached such levels of complexity that ‘giving orders’ rarely works anymore. What increasingly happens is that leaders’manage culture’ by fine-tuning values and dilemmas, and then that culture runs the organization. The leader defines excellence and develops an appropriate culture, and then the culture does the […]

“Leaders and followers are both following the invisible leader – the common purpose. While leadership depends on depth of conviction and the power coming therefrom, there must also be the ability to share that conviction with others, the ability to make purpose articulate. And then that common purpose becomes the leader. And I believe that […]

“What is Integral Leadership?” “Integral Leadership comprises: “A way of being and leading oneself and others which significantly enhances the capacity to create meaningful and desirable futures by transcending, including and aligning multiple, often conflicting perspectives and value systems. “Through the application of this approach, integral leaders are better able to: Align complex sets of […]

“What is Integral Leadership?” “Integral Leadership comprises: “A way of being and leading oneself and others which significantly enhances the capacity to create meaningful and desirable futures by transcending, including and aligning multiple, often conflicting perspectives and value systems. “Through the application of this approach, integral leaders are better able to: Align complex sets of […]

“At the moment people are saying, as if they’re bewildered, ‘Why haven’t we got any great leaders? Why haven’t we got another Churchill? Why haven’t we got another Roosevelt or somebody to show us the way?’ Well, it’s simply because nature is telling us it’s projection. The age of leaders has come and gone. Every […]

“The notion of the CEO as heroic leader is one that you’ve heard so often that you’ve probably come to believe it: The CEO is the company, a heroic leader who single-handedly steers the business to success.The problem with the notion of heroic leadership, of course, is not just that it’s preposterous on the face […]

“…in the twenty-first century, a company of leaders is a competitive advantage. Indeed, in the business world of the twenty-first century, a company of leaders is arguably a necessity.” ~Gretchen M. Spreitzer and Robert E. Quinn, A Company of Leaders, 2001

“Mustering the courage to interrogate reality is a central function of a leader. And that requires the courage to face three realities at once. First, what values do we stand for–and are there gaps between those values and how we actually behave? Second, what are the skills and talents of our company–and are there gaps […]

“There are many leaders, not just one. Leadership is distributed. It resides not solely in the individual at the top, but in every person at every level who, in one way or another, acts as a leader to a group of followers – wherever in the organization that person is, whether shop steward, team head, […]

“In British Coal, there was no leadership. Managers simply followed the dictate of the government.But when I joined the union in the 1960’s, miners were the thought leaders at the vanguard of improvements for working people and society. Mining destroys your lungs, crushes your body. “Working underground makes you crave improvement. A century before, it […]

“Unless we respect the reality of the inner world, commensurate in importance with that of the external world, we are not equipped to understand the full meaning of leadership nor are we able to improve it dramatically, radically. Seeing only half of reality makes us only half a leader. Acknowledging only fifty percent of what […]

“The whole concept of the all-knowing, omnipotent leader is over. Employees know this isn’t reality–and value a more candid dialogue.” ~Kate Lye, Smythe Dorward Lambert, MIT Sloan Management Review, Fall 2001”

“…[John] Sunderland [CEO of Cadbury Schweppes], [Brian] Pitman [CEO of Lloyds TSB] and Mike Parker, president and CEO of Dow Chemical, are all leaders who have had the confidence to go against the grain of conventional business wisdom or best practice. To begin with, their scorecards are decidedly unbalanced…Second, all three executives have devoted an […]

“Our message to young leaders is not that the personality-driven model of leadership is headed for extinction, nor do we believe that it should be. Clearly it will continue in small and start-up companies, and in places where appeals to the human heart must be made in order to bring about drastic change that requires […]

“There is a certain mythology right now in the world that thinks the CEO is a kind of superman.But in fact, this business is so darn complicated, and the decisions are so important, there is no one person alone who is going to be maximally effective in making those decisions. I want my executive committee-the […]

“We live in a society where nobody is completely in charge of anything. Leaders are managers of complexity, but in a high-tech age, if all information comes from the top, it’s probably ineffective and too late. No grandpa at the helm possesses enough knowledge to make the organization run efficiently. Increased complexity requires that people […]

“It’s not a question of management style. Every leader will have and exercise his own management style, but every leader must believe that everyone working with him is part of his success, not just him. The moment a leader starts thinking that he succeeded and not everyone in his organization, then he stops being a […]

“…Focus your resources…Assess the strengths of your organization and your people …then focus everything on the greatest opportunities. …Demand results…A leader should make it crystal clear, every day, that results are the single most important factor in judging an individual’s contribution. …Listen to your heart. Don’t be blinded by big dollar signs. Pay attention to […]

“There are lots of things in life that are worth the pain,” he says. “Being a leader is one of them.” ~Ronald Heifetz, Fast Company

“… Focus your resources… Assess the strengths of your organization and your people … then focus everything on the greatest opportunities. …Demand results…A leader should make it crystal clear, every day, that results are the single most important factor in judging an individual’s contribution. …Listen to your heart. Don’t be blinded by big dollar signs. […]

“I often say that leadership is deeply personal and inherently collective. That’s a paradox that effective leaders have to embrace.” ~Peter Senge, Shambhala Sun, January 2001

I hope these suggestions and questions will help families think ahead, beyond the death of a loved one.

Anouk Brak Hello! My name is Anouk Brack and I’m an expert in leadership development. We know about skills development in leadership, project management skills and conversation skills and all kinds of soft skills that are important. But skill is only one of the three dimensions of leadership development. There are two more dimensions that […]

Holly Woods I am fortunate to work with many wicked smart young professionals who aspire to bring their important innovations to the market so they can change the world. These young visionaries have often left a corporate scenario because they knew their dreams would never see the light of day in a revenue-driven and soul-crushing […]

Jody Jones Often when we want to make a change, it is because a pattern of behavior, beliefs and confirmation bias has become entrenched and isn’t working for us any longer, even though in the past it served us rather well. Once the commitment to change is activated, there is a strong push to kill […]

One of my favorite things about The Leadership Circle is that it fundamentally supports the idea that we recreate ourselves. The Reactive half of the circle offers us a frame for the things that have happened to us historically and a rooting in the way that has impacted us as humans over the course of […]

The other day I was texting with a friend. He spent time with someone we both knew and I asked how it had been. His response “It was interesting. On one level, I like what she says sometimes. And on the other hand, she doesn’t get out of coach mode very easily. So it can feel like you’re being […]

Jon Love Leadership lives in the body. What I will attempt to lay out in this short piece is the notion that our access to producing the phenomenon recognized as “leadership” is first and foremost an embodied “way of being” that can be developed with practice. So let’s start with a common understanding of what […]

Rob McNamara & Lauren Tenney Adulthood is often marked by the drive toward “completion projects”—those big endeavors that compel us, often in unseen ways, and define the horizon of who we understand ourselves to be. It might be completing a new professional program, getting a degree, landing a new job, or being chosen for a key […]

Heidi Hornlein On the IEC 2016 the word TEAL was everywhere – and always in connection with organisations, so mainly with the lower quadrants, especially the lower right. I think, it is very important to discuss these aspects and work on them, but more often than not I have the impression that the upper quadrants, […]

Gabriel Wilson In my experience, any time we engage in a conversation about our differences with an intention to prove the other side wrong, we’re heading for a dead end. When we take a right-wrong stance to any conversation about difference — whether it’s about race or gender, politics or religion — it reveals that […]

Lev Gordon I will say nothing new here, yet it is useful to sometimes repeat something that works, is it not? On occasions in business or non-for-profit activities we aim to achieve goals that are new and beyond ordinary. If you grow and evolve, you innovate, right? And if you innovate, you always look for new […]

Rob McNamara Authenticity is often highly valued by our clients and ourselves as coaches. We like feeling authentic. We enjoy discovering our own integrity. And we soak up the power we get when we are being “true to ourselves.” Authenticity is an intoxicating idea. It’s an even more intoxicating experience. For a self, there’s nothing […]

Winsor Jenkins In the process of coaching a client, you are not expected to go into the process with answers for the client.  As coach, this means you are not there to perform.  Stay open to learning about your client’s needs and trust the process. When I went through my coaching training at the Hudson […]

Michael Brabant Adults are not born, they are not products of 18+ years of living in a human body, they are made. The prerequisite for this creation into adulthood? The death of their identity and habits as a child. I’m not referring to the inner magical child, the enlightened innocence, the sense of wonderment that […]

Judith L. Glick-Smith, Ph.D. Have you ever worked in an environment where everyone is happy and productive, where everyone is actually having fun doing what they do. No one complains about [the boss / a co-worker / the project / upper management / etc.]. The organization is innovative, creative, and profitable. The workplace fosters a […]

Natasha Mantler Work/life balance has run its course… Over the past two decades, there have been a plethora of work/life policies and programs designed to ensure men and women lead more productive lives (Greenhaus, 2000). The result? People are feeling even more stressed about not achieving, never mind maintaining, balance in their lives. When the […]

Natasha Mantler “Act the way you’d like to be and soon you’ll be the way you act.” Leonard Cohen This beautiful quote, from the infamous Leonard Cohen, Canadian singer-songwriter, musician, poet, and novelist, reminds us of the simpler nature of change. And yet, as leadership coaches and human beings, we have also experienced, known, and […]

Tam Lundy “Our best hope for the future is to develop a new paradigm of human capacity to meet a new era of human existence”. Sir Ken Robinson Generative change: An introduction These days there’s lots of talk about adaptive change and adaptive leadership. Framing adaptive leadership as a more adequate response to complex challenges, […]

Bonnie Ellis More than 2000 years ago, Plutarch records that when Demosthenes, the most famous orator of ancient Greece, first addressed the people that he was afflicted by “weakness in his voice, a perplexed and indistinct utterance and a shortness of breath . . .so that in the end, being quite disheartened, he forsook the […]

Rajkumari Neogy For me, change is always about unwrapping your inner package. When you know what’s inside and can read the owner’s manual, you’re better equipped to navigate your control panel. Events, also known as experiences, are catalysts to change. If you choose to view life through that lens, your experiences can become your own […]

Russ Volckmann Assessments are used in many ways in individual development, whether through direct feedback from others, questionnaires, etc. Each individual, each assessment, is based on a set of values that shape criteria. When someone identifies a set of criteria or offers learning from experience, these can be a good place to start in gaining […]

Kirstin McGuire Steve’s Story of Disengagement “You there?” This is the message that awaits my friend Steve via instant messaging every single morning at exactly 8:00am at the office. It’s from his manager, Olivia, who also happens to be the owner of the company where Steve works as a salesperson. Without fail for eight months […]

Gary Hawke Critical Realism is a project of emancipation, as Bhaskar has stated, “a total project to demolish the ideologies standing in the way of human freedom”. If this is the project of Critical Realism, then it is also a search for truth or a search for the Alethic truth, again Bhasker, “This is the […]

Darius Srebalius There has been an overwhelming amount of books and articles dedicated to the power of belief.  Indeed, belief has a crucial power on personal and organizational development. But what about disbelief? There is a tendency to admit that disbelief is void, which is actually not, as it is of a negative form. “I […]

Kirstin McGuire Meeting. Say the word and you are likely to see a lot of eyes rolling and faces cringing. People think, “Ugh! Another unproductive hour of my life that I can never get back.” Like them or not, meetings are a necessity for getting business done, but sadly, the vast majority are a complete […]

Di Rosalia Grande “I wish someone would listen to me!” From this statement begins the search by those who wish to undertake a coaching process. In Italy and in the world there are many styles, approaches and structuring, the reason being that there are a wide range of approaches to offering of this “service”, Coaching […]

Amiel Handelsman It’s now been thirty years since Peters and Waterman published In Search of Excellence. According to Art Kleiner, Editor of strategy + business, this book brought into the mainstream the notion that building a successful company requires more than simply managing the numbers. Or, as an integral practitioner might say, it elevated the […]

Judith E. Glaser My clients are all leaders in corporations ranging in size from $150 million to $50 billion. I share this because I’ve learned that it doesn’t matter how small or large the company is, leaders have the same shared-challenge. How to get to their next level of greatness… When I start a coaching […]

Andy Atwood Here is a real life tale about being an entrepreneur, a business partner, a naïve person, and the victim of embezzlement. It’s the tale of how a couple of old friends have been moving through one “Gumption Trap” after another. In 2008, my basketball shooting buddy, Al Heystek, told me that he had […]

Be Open to Outcomes Eric Reynolds Most of my clients are individuals and small organizations that come to me because they are at a major transition in their lives. They come to me with life goals they want to reach, a professional change they are trying to make, or because they are at a major […]

Eco Leadership: The Practice of Deep Understanding in Action Renee Snow For those of you unfamiliar with the term, Eco Leadership, refers to the marriage of ecology and economy within leadership science. As it is applied here, ecology means the interrelationship among beings in a community and economy is the management of resources within a […]

The Power of Group Coaching in Developing the Self-Authoring Leader Graham Ward According to one theory of screenwriting, there are seven basic plots. Any book you read, play you attend or film you watch, will likely fall into one of these archetypal narratives. So what are these plots that so easily define our human condition? […]

  Erik Mazziotta As Integral coaches we have the tool of the AQAL model to support our clients in addressing the issues they present and help them expand their awareness. Inviting our clients to consciously look at their concerns and aspirations through the different lenses of the model provides them with leverage to distill what […]

A Process for Change Barbara Alexander It is not necessary to change. Survival is not mandatory. —W. Edwards Deming Many of us agree with the spirit of Deming’s quote… in order to survive we need to change. It has always been thus. Change is the only constant is a familiar phrase that finds its origins […]

Russ Volckmann If you are interested in developing your capabilities to step into a leader role or you are a consultant/coach who is working with clients to support such development, then here are a couple of tips that may be useful to you. The first has to do with the distinction between manager and leader. […]

Leadership Coaching From an SDi Perspective Rachel Castagne Leader: A person who leads or commands a group, organization, or country. ‘To lead’: To cause a person or animal to go with one, especially by drawing them along or by preceding them to a destination.   Clare Graves’ research and theory on levels of existence, or […]

Manager, Hero and Leader Raghu Ananthanarayanan India is going through a remarkable transformation. It is racing towards becoming a leader on the world stage. In doing that it is leapfrogging over many stages of growth that the west has been through. The IT and Telecom Industries vie with the best in the world, its infrastructure […]

The Magnetic Leader as Crucible – How to Create a Transformative Space without Scorching People by Zoë Routh Change and learning can be difficult and painful–hence the notion of “crucible” experiences: an event that was challenging or even harrowing acts as a transformational experience, much like a crucible provides a container for huge temperatures that initiate […]

“Mindful Recycling” by Lain Kahlstrom Have you ever noticed yourself becoming fond of a particular idea or practice or methodology, and applying it to virtually all of your clients? I have. I’ve gone on these little ‘jags’ where, miraculously, all of my clients needed to receive the same magic elixir from me. I poured it […]

There is a mind-shift evolving… Allan Gatenby & Meny Lees Research and experience indicates that leadership determines the rate, direction and depth of change within organisations. Leaders either drive the organisation on, or out. Monastic and military models of leadership that have dominated our thinking for decades are gradually being replaced by more effective and […]

Gut-wrenching Decisions: How Ethically Do You Behave in a Crisis? Judith B. Kaplan, Ruby A. Rouse and Richard S. Schuttler   Being in charge is often uncomfortable and thankless. Nevertheless, customers and employees expect leaders to make the ‘right’ decision – even when times are tough.  A national study of leadership, funded by the University […]

Two concepts that have been central to the conversation about management, at least since the work of Chester Barnard, are Responsibility and Accountability. But let’s consider these terms, particularly in the context of leadership coaching. Here is one account of Peter Drucker’s treatment of these concepts: On our return to the classroom Peter began to […]

As leaders, coaches, and change agents each of us have so much to give and offer. It seems from the desire to give, the fear of not knowing, and the push for a result we can so easily loose ourselves in the process. I’ve certainly found myself so lost in trying to solve someone’s problem […]

All leaders find themselves in situations where they need to sit down with somebody for a difficult conversation to resolve a conflict, present a challenging position or negotiate an agreement. Often we have conversations in our head, preparing a speech or an opening statement and then responding to uneasy feelings and a vague sense of […]

THE ISSUE BUSTER is a powerful tool for working with both problems and goals: All decision-making and innovation comes from within human minds. It makes sense to understand how to make the most of our powerful natural resource: the mind! One way this can be done is through using simple patterns of six questions with […]

One of the areas frequently cited as indicative of effective leaders is developing others. This is the idea of and individual in a leader role as coach. And it underscores the importance of individuals who are leading to learn about effective coaching. Fundamental principles and skills are not all that difficult to learn. Integrating them […]

Lately, I’ve been wondering what kind of leadership this moment in history is calling for. The short answer is second-tier leadership, defined as that which promotes the health of the entire spiral. I am impressed by the work of Don Beck and others in describing the dimensions of this, like searching for the underlying cultural […]

The Drucker Foundation has this to say about leadership – “The only definition of leader is someone who has followers”. In other words, as a leader, it is your capacity to engage with others in such a way that they are willing to follow you that marks you as a leader. For all of us […]

The potential for positive impact that leaders have on our world is almost limitless. Building leaders that can take effective and grounded action in the service of a better world is a worthy cause in my reckoning. Practice is essential for any endeavor in which we wish to succeed. I have found the following practices […]

Want to Lead More Successfully? Five Strategies for Upgrading to Centauric Leadership Timothy H. Warneka “Whatever happens to the body also happens to the mind. The sanity of the body is the sanity of the mind; the violation of the body is the violation of the mind.” —Thich Nhat Hanh Lead Your Organization Out of […]

You are a business leader. You want to change the culture of your company. Engaging and motivating your people is a key factor. Where do you start? What do you need? Where to go first? The answer is, start with communication. What do you need to get there? Ask your coach! First develop your own […]

“When you stand up for what you believe is right, you must have the courage to acknowledge your actions and face the consequences.”~ Mahatma K. Gandhi As a 21st Century Leader, you encounter defensive routines in organizational settings every minute of every day. The trick is not to try to eliminate them, rather to discover […]

In the Summer 2007 issue of Tricycle: The Buddhist Review, the Dalai Lama, spiritual and political leader of the Tibetan people, wrote about eight core concerns that we all have as human beings. The Eight Worldly Concerns Wanting to be praised …and not wanting to be criticized. Wanting happiness …and not wanting suffering. Wanting gain …and […]

As Baby Boomers (born between 1946-1964) transition from marketplace leadership roles, they clear the way for new mental models and cultural shifts borne of Gen Xers (born between 1965-1981) and Millennials (born between 1982 and 2000). While “fair process” and “challenging the institutional powers-that-be” were revolutionary breakthroughs in the Boomer heyday—they now drag on the […]

Interdevelopmental Institute (IDM), www.interdevelopmentals.org I understand “Coaching Tips” as highly generic suggestions thought to apply to all kinds of clients. From an adult-developmental perspective, such suggestions should be specific to different levels of social-emotional and cognitive maturity, measured by semi-structured interview (Laske, 2006). The notion is that generic coaching tips need to be customized to the […]

Theorists from Ed Schein to Fred Kofman have been talking about the importance of organizational culture for organizational success. Culture has am important role to play for leadership. It shapes the meaning of the actions of leaders, as well as provides them with the context of their own meaning making. Much of integral theory, so […]

Purpose and Principle in Leadership Dee Hock said, “I believe that purpose and principle, clearly understood and articulated, and commonly shared, are the genetic code of any healthy organization.” Such purpose and principle as exists is initiated and sustained by players throughout an organization. Purpose and principle guide the actions of leaders, collaborators and followers. […]

Reflection I recently read somewhere (the source has momentarily escaped me – but the quote rangers are on the hunt already) that top executives make sure to include time for reflection in their daily activities. That reflection takes many forms: alone time to read, write, journal and the like; meditation; walking a golf course or […]

Watch out for SHAMs It has become pretty clear that self-help programs do not, in themselves, work. Evidence to the contrary is anecdotal, as far as I can discover. Michael Shermer, editor of Skeptic, recently published a short article in Scientific American debunking self-help from fire walking to Tony Robbins. “Do these programs work? No one […]

Your client has a mental model of leading. This includes the very concept of leadership that she holds. It involves what it is to be a leader, what leaders do, relationships with collaborators and followers, the relationship between leading and the strategic directions of the organization, the role of culture in determining leader effectiveness. It […]

Dumb question? We all know that if the client thinks there is progress, that’s good enough for us, right? Well, maybe! When working with a client who is looking for measurement of results it is important to start with an exploration of what is important to measure. Only then can you begin to explore approaches […]

If the executive you are working with has as a developmental objective to be able to recognize and engage effectively with others who may have different world views than her own, you can use a scenario approach. You can support them in recognizing other world views by learning about their own and then reframing perspective […]

When working developmentally with an executive and one goal is to develop capabilities for working with change, innovation, ambiguity and surprise, this will involve attention to leadership. Try scenarios. The executive can participate fully in designing the scenario. For example, scenario questions might be, how would s/he respond if a competitor became more aggressive, if […]

Clearly, our capacities for seeing and understanding different worldviewsand action logics, much less be able to strategize from those perspectives, is a function of our integral development. Cognitively, we can learn to recognize the signs and symbols (and symptoms?) of various levels of development along multiple streams. A challenge in coaching executives is to first, […]

The coaching conversations related to the use and design of scenarios can offer a useful way to open discussions of values, beliefs, assumptions, mental models, aspirations, etc., that the executive client holds, supports and defends. One of the most useful contributions the coaching process can make is testing and determining what is truly important to […]

When coaching executives, look for openings to explore the relationship between interior-individual lines of development (intellectual, emotional, etc.) and organizational systems (vision and strategy, communications, etc.) An example of such an exploration would follow from the question, “What’s the link between your energy (belief, focus, etc.) and current organizational strategy?” Another might be, “What organizational […]

In leadership development through coaching we use a “what if” type of question to help leaders to tease out the implications of alternatives. That is a double-loop learning strategy– and a useful one. We can deepen the learning by moving to triple loop explorations. The use of scenarios as’what if” explorations also holds the possibility […]

When working with an executive or other leader in generating alternatives and playing out outcomes from alternatives we are engaging in a scenario exploration process. As a coach it is important to be able to recognize elements of such an analysis that relates to different levels of development and to developmental dynamics. If you use […]

The sources of business tsunamis are manifold. Just in the last few days I have had executive clients bring their tsunami’s to our coaching conversations. One example is an individual who is purchasing an entertainment company that includes a radio station. The financing for this effort must be available within a two-business-day window following an […]

It is obvious that when coaching leaders from an integral perspective it is important to surface relevant work that is related to the cognitive, emotional, values, relationships, health, moral and spiritual aspects of the individual. Keep in mind, however, it is their perspective on all of this that is the starting point, not the coach’s.

When coaching leaders from an integral perspective our ability to discern where the client is at is critical. What we need to look for are beliefs, assumptions and mental models held by the leader. Second we need to look at the behaviors that are launched from this internal platform. Next we need to examine the […]

Many leaders have considerable skill in breaking things down. That is in the problem solving tradition they cut their leadership baby teeth on. Find the parts, test the parts, fix the ones that aren’t right and reassemble. Does reassemble offer us a clue as to what is required to achieve the kind of integrating skills […]

When coaching executives it is important at times to have them “see things” from different perspectives. Otherwise, they are trapped in their own experience and learned ways of engaging. One way to support this is to have them view the same phenomenon through the lenses of their various roles. What roles? Well they could be […]

Important to the coaching process is supporting the leader and the collective of which s/he is a part to gain clarity about how they make meaning in the face of change and ambiguity. One approach is to explore meaning making in levels that parallel those of learning: performance enhancement, individual and system change, and transformation–a […]

Explore Meaning Making Important to the coaching process is supporting the leader and the collective of which s/he is a part to gain clarity about how they make meaning in the face of change and ambiguity. One approach is to explore meaning making in levels that parallel those of learning: performance enhancement, individual and system change, […]

When coaching leaders in business and organizations the question of agenda assumes some primacy. Sometimes executives are assigned coaches as a reward and sometimes as “punishment” for not performing. Occasionally, we find organizations offering coaching as an intentional developmental tool. In any case, the agenda is not pure. There are multiple agendas at work: those […]

When coaching leaders in business and organizations the question of agenda assumes some primacy. Sometimes executives are assigned coaches as a reward and sometimes as “punishment” for not performing. Occasionally, we find organizations offering coaching as an intentional developmental tool. In any case, the agenda is not pure. There are multiple agendas at work: those […]

By considering assumptions underlying the beliefs and opinions of executive clients, mental models can be evoked. An example of this is the executive who continues to look outside him/herself for an explanation of events that are not satisfying or even frustrating, rather than examining their own beliefs and behaviors. There are several lines of inquiry […]

An implication of leadership system evolution being dependent on other sets of relationships is significant. When coaching executives who are struggling with leadership system change, direct their attention to the issues of self-management, attunement and engagement. These are where the leverage for changing the dynamics of leadership system evolution may be found. And it is […]

When coaching executives who are encountering frustration with other leaders and collective activities like meetings, recognize that there are several levels related to those experiences. At the base is the way commitment engages with purpose through group membership, competence engages with resources in a leadership organization of contributors, innovation engages with inspiration through players on […]

In working with executives around attunement, there are a myriad of potential openings to explore. Ultimately, the executive must choose which to follow. As a coach, however, it is important to support the executive in exploring them. In the case of attunement, openings will include attention to issues of identity, such as values and beliefs […]

When coaching an executive about engaging in dialogue with others it is useful to distinguish dialogue from other types of conversation. Dialogue is about learning. The focus of the learning is oneself. It is learning about one’s values, beliefs, assumptions and intentions. It brings to awareness what we already know and believe and often surfaces […]

Leaders are seeking outcomes from their coaching experiences related to awareness, purpose, competence and well-being, says B\Coach’s Mike Jay. Coaching is probably the most valuable support system for achieving these outcomes through an evolving process of self-management. But coaches need to beware. Because we see behaviors or hear words that have meaning for us about […]

Coaching a leader is very much about dealing with the questions and challenges of connectedness. On the one hand, getting at motivation for relationships with others through exploring assumptions, beliefs, values, aspirations and guiding principles leads to more effective formulation of strategy through the development and testing of alternative scenarios. To do so means looking […]

What are the kinds of questions that can be raised with a business leader when coaching them that relate to their role as entrepreneur? Be alert to their view of their role. Does it include this capacity for entrepreneurship? What are their critical stakeholder interfaces? How are conditions for stakeholders the same, changing? How do […]

Coaching for Enterprise Leadership Executive coaching can be helpful to leaders in developing strategy. They may want to get a handle on their relationships with stakeholders and how those relationships link to business objectives. It is also important to look at relationships with other leaders and the levels of alignment and engagement they have with […]

It is not enough to help the individual leader develop competencies. It is also important to help them understand their motivations and relationships with what is challenging them and their businesses. When they are clear that this is something valuable for them to attend to, you can help them open the door to creativity and […]

Recognize that leadership is both an individual and a collective phenomenon. Also recognize that defining what this will look like, particularly in the area of teamwork, is something that the CEO and other members of the executive team will need to define. The idea of teamwork has been around for so long and people have […]

Help the leader define their context in terms of strategy, business objectives and relationships with others in the leadership system. Then, look at their roles as committed members of the leadership group and competent contributors to the leadership organization. Compare and contrast what is important individually and collectively for leadership. Identify the requirements for individual […]

When working with business leaders to enhance their competencies, use time, energy, information, influence and credibility as sources of key questions to make sure that leaders are anticipating what is required and how they will respond. When looking at potential courses of action-scenarios-check out the implications of each for these critical leader competencies. Help the […]

When working with individual or groups of leaders explore the question of leadership resources with them. Help them identify the resources that are important to them. Test their assumptions and beliefs about leadership resources. Then have them identify how best to use those resources in relation to leadership purpose and the achievement of business objectives. […]

When coaching an individual leader in a business, explore her/his assumptions about the individual and collective aspects of leadership in their experience. Ask them to tell stories about each and identify what important learning there was. Some sample questions might be: What were your intentions? What did you do? What was the result? What does […]

“When working with individual or groups of leaders explore the question of leadership resources with them. Help them identify the resources that are important to them. Test their assumptions and beliefs about leadership resources. “Then have them identify how best to use those resources in relation to leadership purpose and the achievement of business objectives.” […]

A good place to begin when looking at leadership issues in a business organization is the context. Begin that by identifying the forces of change. Is there growing complexity? What kind – technological, market, workforce, competition, other? Is the pace of change shifting: slowing down, speeding up? How is the leader seeing and experiencing change […]

Susanne Cook-Greuter, Ken Wilber, and Beena Sharma Introduction Co-authored by leaders in the field of integral and adult developmental theory, this review expresses a three-fold hope: We want to raise awareness regarding the importance of rigorous research among scholar-practitioners engaged in theory building and research in psychology. We invite dialogue on these key issues among […]

Peter Merry and Nish Dubashia Dialogue One: Beyond Evolution and the Cognitive Mind This dialogue was transcribed from a video series between Peter Merry and Nish Dubashia. You can watch dialogue here. Peter: So the impulse was that I was reading your chapter on thought and time, and it suddenly clicked in to what you’ve […]

Robin Lincoln Wood, Kathleen Andrews Kathleen: Good morning, everybody. I’m here with Robin Wood. Today is September 25, 2020. I had a talk with Robin Wood earlier this week and we realized he has a lot to say. He’s been thinking about recording some things about his life for many years, so we’re meeting again. […]

Scott Barry Kaufman and Alfonso Montuori Alfonso: Scott, your earlier books drew extensively from neuroscience. This one rediscovers and updates Maslow and Humanistic psychology, the latter a tradition that has not been at the forefront of psychology for many years now. What prompted this decision? Scott: Why now? A: Right. Because humanistic psychology fell out […]

Eric Reynolds Biography and Background Eric:  Hello Riane! Thank you so much for joining me. I was wondering if we could start with you giving a brief background of how you came to being who you are, I guess, and the work that you do? Riane:  That’s an interesting question, because my life has been […]

This interview was taken by Eugene Pustoshkin, Integral Leadership Review’s Bureau Chief / Associate Editor for Russia, on May 13, 2019, in St. Petersburg, Russia, Eugene:   Hello Michael, welcome to Saint Petersburg. Michael:   Thank you very much. I’ve looked forward to coming to this great city for many, many years and I’m very happy to […]

George:  Hello Robin! I’m happy that we have a chance to have this conversation about your work. Especially because in the last years … well I’ve been a great fan of your work and we had a chance to work together as well on certain of your projects. I think this is a great opportunity […]

Robin Lincoln-Wood with Otto Laske RLW: Good evening, Otto wonderful to finally meet you, even if it’s across the internet. This is Robin Wood interviewing Otto Laske about his work, and in particular, his deep-thinking framework and all the other manifestations of that work that we’ll be discussing in a minute. But before we start, […]

Robin Lincoln-Wood with Terri O’Fallon   In this interview, Robin Lincoln-Wood and Terri O’Fallon discuss how they both became interested in integral leadership and state development, and how it has impacted their professional careers! RLW:  Welcome to this interview between Terri O’Fallon and Robin Wood for Integral Leadership Review. We’re going to be discussing how Terri […]

Lauren Tenney In this interview with Diane Musho Hamilton, we explore the territory of emotional maturity, and how it underpins and amplifies our efficacy and contribution to the world. Diane Musho Hamilton is the author of The Zen of You and Me, just released from Shambhala Publications, and is the co-founder and lead trainer of Integral Facilitator programs. […]

Eric Reynolds Dennis Wittrock, M.A. (philosophy), partner at encode.org, founder of Integral Europe, director of the Integral European Conference, certified Holacracy® Facilitator, MeetingDoctor consultant, served 5 years as CEO and board member of Integrales Forum and the Integral Academy in Germany. His purpose is to create spaces for the emergence of integral consciousness. www.integral-con-text.de   […]

Hilary Bradbury and William Torbert About the Authors Hilary Bradbury, Ph.D., is an Adjunct Professor in the Division of Management at Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU). Her research, scholarly activism and teaching focus on the human and organizational dimensions of creating healthy communities. At OHSU she teaches in the OHSU-PSU joint MBA in Healthcare Management program and in the physician leadership […]

Special Russia Issue Guest Editor’s Note: Ilya Kuznetsov, aka MC 1.8, is a dear friend of mine. He comes from a simple background, and witnessed a lot of violence in his youth—which commonly happened in the post-Soviet era and which often serves as a crucial existential background for a rapper (such as him). To me, he […]

    This interview was translated from Russian by Eugene Pustoshkin. — Hello, Alexander! Could you please tell us about yourself: what do you do and what are you interested in? — Hi, Eugene! For the past several years I prefer to call myself an integral scholar-practitioner and attempt to combine fundamental cross-cultural and postdisciplinary research […]

Marilyn Hamilton  Marilyn Hamilton: First off … thanks for taking the courage to open a portal in Russia for integrally informed Leadership, where not many people in the west can see the kind of leadership in Russia that is emerging through you and the team that you are gathering around you. … How do you […]

When Russ Volkmann suggested that Mary Ann Thompson-Frenk, the co-founder/president of The Memnosyne Institute, be interviewed for ILR, it seemed easy enough. But then, that was before catching her on Facebook revealed that she and her husband, Joshua Raymond Frenk, President of The Club of Budapest Americas and VP of Memnosyne, are often in multiple […]

Carol Sanford served as speaker for Saybrook’s Organizational Systems 2015 graduating class.  She inspired the curiosity of our graduates and students as she spoke about her transdisciplinary approach to working with organizations in support of innovation for a more sustainable world.  In this interview, we explore Carol’s approach to disrupting organizations, challenging leaders to think […]

Eric Reynolds Aftab Omer, Ph.D. is a sociologist, psychologist, futurist and the president of Meridian University. Raised in Pakistan, India, Hawaii, and Turkey, he was educated at the universities of M.I.T, Harvard and Brandeis. His publications have addressed the topics of transformative learning, cultural leadership, generative entrepreneurship and the power of imagination. His work includes […]

Edward J. Kelly Edward: Charles could we start by talking about your latest book The Second Curve and how you came up with the concept? Charles: It has been around in my mind for quite a long time and I wrote about it originally 20 years ago. I was always intrigued by the first curve, […]

Eric Reynolds Eric: I’m here with Sean Esbjörn-Hargens. Thank you for joining me today. Sean: Yeah. Definitely. Thanks, Eric. It is good to connect and I’m looking forward to chatting with you today. Eric: I’m here to talk to you about MetaIntegral, the state of Integral Theory and the upcoming Integral Theory Conference. I’m wondering, […]

Russ Volckmann Russ:  Gervase Bushe, it’s a great pleasure to meet you finally after many, many years of hearing about your work. We have some colleagues in common given my 22+ years in OD. When I first heard about your work, you were at Simon Fraser University. Tell us a little bit about your background […]

  Marilyn:  Well, I want to just start our interview with an expression of gratitude. We’re in Canada and this happens to be the week before Thanksgiving. So I thought it would be really speaking from my heart to say thank you very much for taking the courage to open, what I’m calling a “portal” […]

Russ:  When I first heard about you, it was in relation to your work with Spiral Dynamics Integral and Don Beck. Then, you were doing some work in Houston, Texas. You were also working in Omaha, Nebraska. As I look at the work you’ve done – I don’t see anything in Latin America or Antarctica […]

  Russ:    Nancy Southern, I want to welcome you to Integral Leadership Review. Nancy:  Thank you. Good to be here. Russ:   This is not your first appearance. You were lead author of “Shifting from Knowledge Power to Generative Inquiry: Creating the Field for Transformative Learning in Healthcare and Business” with Jorge Taborga, and Mara Zabari […]

Russ Volckmann Bill Drath and Charles Palus wrote a paper in 1994 for the Center for Creative Leadership: “Making Common Sense: Leadership as Meaning-making in a Community of Practice.” Subsequently, Drath extended his thinking in his 2001 book, The Deep Blue Sea: Rethinking the Source of Leadership (Jossey-Bass). He participated in writing and publishing other […]

Lera Boroditsky, PhD, is an Associate Professor of Cognitive Science at UCSD and Editor in Chief of Frontiers in Cultural Psychology. She studies language and cognition, specifically focusing on interactions between language, cognition, and perception. She received her B.A. from Northwestern University and her Ph.D. from Stanford University. Her research combines insights and methods from […]

Ralph Kilmann and the Courageous Mosaic An Interview with Russ Volckmann Russ: This is the second interview that I’ve had an opportunity to do with Ralph Kilmann. The first was in relation to his book, Quantum Organizations, which at that time, ten years ago or so, represented probably one of the most out there books […]

Russ: Welcome back to the Integral Leadership Review, Don. You’re one of the important guiding lights for the very existence of this publication. The work that you and your colleagues have done around the world, has been noted to some degree at least. I’m not sure if there ever can be enough in the pages […]

Russ Volckmann In the late 1970s and into the 1990s it seemed that more and more people were being drawn to some study of physics, quantum mechanics, chaos and complexity theories. We were reading The Tao of Physics. This led us to David Bohm (with and without Krishnamurti), Niels Bohr, Heisenberg, Feynman, Glick, Sheldrake and […]

Russ:  I have the pleasure of introducing Otto Scharmer, who is Senior Lecturer at MIT and founding chair of the Presencing Institute, he also is well known as an author of what I can only describe as a major work – Theory U. He is also co-authored the books Presence, with Peter Senge, Joe Jaworski and […]

Russ Volckmann Russ: I’ve never met Lisa Chacon, but I’ve heard about some of the work she’s been doing in the San Francisco Bay Area. I was delighted to discover that she has quite an extraordinary integral background. But when I learned about the work that Lisa and others are doing in Oakland, California, it […]

Russ: Elza Maalouf, it is a great honor and privilege and pleasure to have you return to the pages of the Integral Leadership Review. Elza: It‘s always a pleasure to talk to you Russ and thank you for ILR. Russ: You’ve published material in Integral Leadership Review about some of your activities in the Middle […]

Walker Karraa Earlier this year I had the opportunity to sit down with Mark McCaslin and discuss the Potentiating Arts™, integral leadership, and what he sees for the future of the Integral Leadership Review. Walker: How do you feel about the idea of sharing some of the stories that have been, that you’ve shared with […]

Russ Volckmann Russ: I would like to welcome Diane Krauthamer, who has been involved in the labor movement for many years. We talk a lot about management and leadership and international development in organizations, NGOs, businesses and the like. But I think areas that we have severely neglected is the whole area of labor unions […]

Russ Volckmann Russ: I’d like to introduce Terry Patten who is well known in the Integral Community for his work of many years. He is now based in San Francisco. Is that right Terry? Terry: Yes. I live just North of San Francisco in Fairfax in Marin County. Russ: For people who may not know […]

Mark McCaslin Vicki Noble is a radical feminist healer, author, independent scholar and wisdom teacher. Born in 1947 and raised in Iowa, she awakened to the Goddess and Women’s Spirituality on her arrival in Berkeley, California in 1976. Through a ‘shamanic healing crisis’, she opened psychically to the healing, art, yoga, and divination processes that […]

I am pleased to have interviewed Prof. Ervin Laszlo who is a systems philosopher, integral theorist, and classical pianist. Twice nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, he has authored more than 70 books that have been translated into nineteen languages, and has published in excess of four hundred articles and research papers, including six volumes […]

Russ Volckmann Russ: Welcome Michael. It’s a great pleasure to have a chance to talk with you. I first learned about your work with the formation of ILiA – the Integral Leadership in Action group – many years ago. And you were one of the very first contributors of articles to Integral Leadership Review in […]

Russ Volckmann Russ: I want to welcome Jeff Klein who has been a light that’s been shining around the integral and the consciousness world for some time. I have had the chance to talk to Jeff a little bit before, but I have a lot to learn from him. I hope, Jeff, you will permit me […]

Russ Volckmann Russ: Tom, let’s begin by learning a bit about your background. What part of New Jersey are you from? Tom: I grew up in Flemington, New Jersey, which is to the west in Hunterdon County. My family is still in that neck of the woods. I have a farm there that I’m going […]

Russ Volckmann Currently Scott is Chief Medical Officer of ACAP Health and Holmes Murphy and Associates.  He possesses over two decades of experience as a medical doctor, business executive, physician leader and medical researcher. He is driven by a strong commitment to the transformation of healthcare into a patient oriented, physician directed, and accountable system […]

Russ Volckmann Russ: Barrett, your name is probably very familiar to a lot of people in the core integral group. Integral Leadership Review has many subscribers who are outside those boundaries. So they probably don’t  know a lot about you, even though you have shown up in the pages of Integral Leadership Review before with […]

Russ Volckmann Russ:I would like to welcome Barbara Kellerman who is known for a couple of reasons. One is her scholarship in the field of leadership that has connected beyond the notion of the heroic leader into the that of the relationship between leader and follower. More recently her work extends beyond that—and we will […]

An Interview of Barrett Brown by Ken Wilber Topic: Barrett’s Ph.D. research on how leaders with post-conventional consciousness design and engage in complex change initiatives, specifically in the field of sustainability. Interview Date: August, 2011; Available to public: March-April, 2012; Transcribed: May, 2012 An audio version of the interview can be found on the Integral […]

Russ Volckmann Russ: It has been all about seven months since we last talked. In the August issue of 2011 we had a conversation in which you were showing me how you were bringing Spiral Dynamics analysis in working both with business and in looking at the spread of the cartels in Mexico. So let’s […]

Russ Volckmann James O’Dea is one of those people who hasn’t just talked about peace. He has had a career that has been dedicated to peace and human rights. He has a fascinating career with organizations that I’ve supported through donations and membership: Amnesty International and the Institute of Noetic Sciences. He was the CEO […]

Nick Shannon Anthony Grayling MA, DPhil (Oxon) FRSL, FRSA is Master of the New College of the Humanities, and a Supernumerary Fellow of St Anne’s College, Oxford. Until 2011 he was Professor of Philosophy at Birkbeck College, University of London. He has written and edited over twenty books on philosophy and other subjects; among his […]

Ken Wilber, American philosopher, has been a prolific writer and contributor of Integral Theory in relation to self development and application across all domains of human activity. Raquel Torrent, founder and former President of the Spanish Integral Association (2005) and founder of the Spanish Integral Conferences (continuing from 2003), visited Ken Wilber at his home […]

Dr. Don Beck s best known as the coauthor of the book, Spiral Dynamics. He has traveled the world with his compelling messages about the application of spiral dynamics to reframing how we define issues and understand the people involved in them. His work has taken him to South Africa, Palestine and Israel, Germany, Iceland, […]

Russ Volckmann Russ: Roberto, we have been in communication for several years and much of it has been in relation to the work you have done with Don Beck in Mexico.  For example, one of the things that you have written about is the work that you have done with the Department of Education and […]

Integral International Development: Gail Hochachka and Michael Simpson Russ Volckmann Gail Hochachka is director of Drishti – Centre for Integral Action, where you can find some of her writing and reports on international development (http://www.drishti.ca/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=26&Itemid=14) and Integral Program Coordinator at One Sky: Canadian Institute for Sustainable Living. Her husband, Michael Simpson, is the Executive Director […]

Developing Leaders: An Interview with Bruce Avolio From the Center for Leadership & Strategic Thinking Foster School of Business University of Washington Russ Volckmann Russ: I have been looking forward to talking with you because of your work in leader development. Where did you do your PhD work? Bruce: At The Akron University, Ohio, in […]

The following interview is one of many initially conducted as part of the research for a writing project. We hope to share more of these interviews, because the work of these entrepreneurs and executives demonstrates the viability of a well conceived leader development program—in this case the Stagen Integral Leadership Program based in Dallas, Texas. […]

Prasad Kaipa Prasad Kaipa: This is an interview for the Integral Leadership Review. There is a special issue that is going to be published on India. We have chosen to pick one corporate leader for an interview. We think you are the right person to be interviewed. We have formulated these questions with the editor […]

Reprise: A Focus on 2nd Person in a 2nd Interview with Bill Torbert by Russ Volckmann I first interviewed Bill Torbert in 2002. http://www.integralleadershipreview.com/archives-2002/2002-08/2002-08-fresh-torbert.php In fact, he is the only person I have published in “Fresh Perspectives” twice in Integral Leadership Review. In part this is due to the respect with which I hold him […]

Appreciating Integral: An Interview with Dana Carman Russ Volckmann Since 1984 Dana Carman has coached and consulted to visionary leaders and organizations spanning five continents across multiple sectors of society. His clients have demonstrated a commitment to transform themselves and their organizations, as well as the industries and regions in which their organizations are embedded. […]

Leadership, Complexity and Development An Interview with Sandra M. Martinez by Russ Volckmann Russ: Sandra Martinez, you have had a varied career. You’ve told me that you once had an art gallery in Santa Fe; now you’re with a foundation in Honduras and in between you’ve been with the Naval Postgraduate School and the U.S. […]

Annie McKee earned a Ph.D. in Organizational Behavior at Case Western Reserve University. She has co-authored two groundbreaking books on leadership, Primal Leadership (with Daniel Goleman and Richard Boyatzis) and Resonant Leadership (also with Boyatzis) Her book, Becoming a Resonant Leader, was published in March, 2008. She serves as Adjunct Professor at the Graduate School […]

Rand Stagen and Brett Thomas are significant innovators in the application of integral perspectives and approaches to organizations and leadership. I have wanted to interview them for some time, particularly since interviewing two of their clients. Here is an update on their innovative activities. Russ: I welcome this wonderful opportunity to talk with two business partners whom […]

My intentions were good and I collaborated with my technology to make it impossible to share with you as remarkable interview with Jim Garrison. Can you imagine my pain? Can you imagine the stress management exercises I am drawing on today? Well, all is not lost. Jim graciously acceded to doing another interview and that […]

Oliver M. Triebel is “Head of Organizational Learning,” Mindsets & Capabilities Practice, McKinsey & Company, Germany – Berlin Office Oliver started his career with McKinsey back in 1993 after having completed his Master in Public Administration at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government and before that a master degree in natural sciences (cell and molecular […]

Russ: Brian Johnson, I welcome you to the Integral Leadership Review. I’m really excited about our talk today. Brian: Likewise. I appreciate the invitation. Russ: I discovered in hunting you down that you’re no longer on the mainland US; you’re on Bali. What are you doing there? Brian: I like to say I left my iPhone and my personal […]

Russ: Jay Davies, you’re with Integral Development in Perth, Western Australia and the company is led by Ron Cacioppe and works in government, business and NGOs. Jay: Yes, that’s right. Not for profit organizations, as well as top end businesses here in Perth, and also government organizations. Russ: What is your role? Jay: My role is in three parts. […]

Russ: Great to have the chance to talk with you, Chris. Where are you this week? Chris: I’m literally 200 meters from Edinburgh Castle in Scotland. It is a country that’s having the courage to ask the hard questions about how to lead through a significant transition. I’m in a very aware and heightened state. Russ: Other than […]

Russ: I’m very much aware that you’ve been interested in the idea of Integral Leadership for a number of years. I first became aware of your work in publications in the Leadership and Organizational Development Journal and then later in the Journal of Change Management. Your interest at that time seemed to be very much oriented to the subject […]

The work of Rick and Lillas Hatala is a source of fascination for all who are interested in more integral, developmental and transdisciplinary approaches to leadership. Their focus is on the development of the individual leader, yet their work in applying their approaches addresses whole organizations and industries. Theirs is a dual approach to company […]

Steve McIntosh is CEO of Now & Zen, Inc., and author of Integral Consciousness and the Future of Evolution: How the Integral Worldview is Transforming Politics, Culture and Spirituality (Paragon House, 2007). Russ: Steve, it is a wonderful opportunity to have the chance to talk with you. I’ve read your book and have been impressed by its […]

Wessel Ganzevoort is past Chairman of KPMG Europe and is Professor of Organizational Dynamics and Innovation at the University of Amsterdam. He is a member of the Integral Leadership Review’s Integral Leadership Council and you can read more about him at http://www.integralleadershipreview.com/contributor/bio-ganzevoort-wessel.html. Russ: I know that you spent many years with KPMG in Europe. Your role evolved from consultant […]

Q: Jim, it’s been a while since we talked. One of the things I’ve noticed in your work with Barry Posner is since you published The Leadership Challenge you’ve been creating some additional material that seems to be both building upon your existing works and a shift in perspective. This has been in two books called Encouraging the […]

Q: Carol, it’s a great pleasure to talk to you. I know of you primarily as the Director of the James MacGregor Burns Academy of Leadership at the University of Maryland and have discovered that you have a very rich background in a wide variety of areas that I think are highly relevant to the study […]

EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION Increasingly, we are looking for material—articles, interviews—that will assist us all in learning about integral and developmental approaches to leadership that work. That is why you are seeing an increase in the number of articles and interviews by and with people who are actively engaged in bringing Integral Leadership to the worlds of […]

Sir Ken Robinson, PhD, is an internationally recognized leader in the development of creativity, innovation and human resources. He has worked with governments in Europe, Asia and the USA, with international agencies, Fortune 500 companies, not-for-profit corporations and some of the world’s leading cultural organizations. He is in wide demand as an inspirational speaker with a […]

Russ: There was a phrase that I read in one of your publications that seemed to be such a great snapshot of what you do, and it reads like this: “Running a globally-responsible, sustainable business can provide both a competitive advantage today and serve as a catalyst for commercial and social innovation for a better tomorrow.” […]

Russ:  Welcome to the Integral Leadership Review, John Smith. It’s a pleasure to have a chance to talk with you. John: Thank you, Russ, for the invitation. Russ: I’d like to start off by sharing a quote from Don Beck. It was a comment about you that at least captures the scope of some of the things that we may […]

When I discovered Harry Lasker and a hint of the scope of his work and contributions, I asked him if we could do an interview. I wanted to review his early research with Jane Loevinger’s developmental model (that is at the heart of Susann Cook-Greuter’s Leadership Development Profile and is used by Bill Torbert and his […]

Russ: Welcome, Bill and Steve. I would like to congratulate you because in October you will have the first integrally informed leadership book to be published by a major publisher in the world. Is that your understanding, too? Bill: What about Bill Torbert’s Action Inquiry? Russ: Certainly Action Inquiry includes materials highly relevant to leadership, but I don’t […]

Q: You seem to be involved in so many things – your work with Integral Institute, with Integral Development Associates, with the Stagen Institute, teaching at JFK University, your role with Ken Wilber, leading an integral workshop at Esalen in Big Sur – that there are a number of different approaches we could have to this […]

Alan Tonkin is the Chairman and CEO of the Global Values Network (GVN) is an international consulting business committed to the practical use of the Values Technology originally developed by Professor Clare Graves in the 50’s and further developed by Dr. Don Beck over the last 30 years from the early 70’s. The Global Values […]

It seems unusual, on the surface of it, to reach back more than fifteen years for a “Fresh Perspective.” However, I think you will find that the work and the thinking of Joseph Rost fifteen years ago and today are, indeed, fresh! Joseph Rost is a professor emeritus of leadership studies in the School of […]

Q: Diane, you were described as a student of Genpo Roshi and an authorized Big Mind process facilitator. I had never heard of Diane Hamilton and all of a sudden she shows up at the Integral Organizational Leadership Workshop in Colorado and does this extraordinary job of leading 50 plus people through Big Mind. From what […]

Bob Anderson has been a leader in the development of integral approaches to developing leaders. Q In your writing I see the words “spiritual” and “soul.” Do you use those in the world of business? A: Yes, but carefully, at the right moment and not in connection with a particular religious perspective. But you’re probably looking […]

Q: One thing from your writing is the idea that the focus on the heroic notion of leadership is destructive. Would you care to comment on that? A: I don’t use the word ‘heroic,’ but I think it is dangerous to focus on leadership as an individual trait. It is also based on the fiction that in […]

Q: I want to start with your interest in Integral. When I reviewed your book, Coaching: Evoking Excellence in Others, I found the domains of competence that include the “I, it, we.” You discuss intellect, emotion, will, context and soul. I was reminded of the holon and the notion of lines of development and wondered what were […]

Q: What is the relationship between your being a chair in ethical management and your Integral Leadership program at H.E.C.? A: It’s pretty straightforward. If we’re talking about integral development, like Ken Wilber or Bill Tolbert and many other developmental theorists, we’re talking about ethics. The behaviors, thinking patterns and emotions of people are targeted for acting […]

This interview with Sara Ross took place about a year ago. At the time she was engaged in an exchange with Dr. Don Beck on the subject of critical inquiry in the integral community. This is her abstract of a paper she offered to the Integral Leadership and organization development listserve. “The purpose of this conversational ‘letter’ […]

Originally from Argentina, Fred Kofman spent several years as a faculty member at MIT and worked closely with Peter Senge. Now in Colorado, his consulting and coaching practice has led to the creation of a new business and a close relationship with Ken Wilber. He is the author of Metamanagement, published in Spanish and soon to […]

Originally from Argentina, Fred Kofman spent several years as a faculty member at MIT and worked closely with Peter Senge. Now in Colorado, his consulting and coaching practice has led to the creation of a new business and a close relationship with Ken Wilber. He is the author of Metamanagement, published in Spanish and soon to […]

Dr. Cook-Greuter, is principal of Harthill USA. She is a core member of the Psychology and Business Practice Branches of Ken Wilber’s Integral Institute, a think tank in Boulder, Colorado. Susanne has a doctorate from Harvard University and is an internationally known authority on Mature Adult Development. She has co-authored two books with Mel Miller […]

Charles Hampden-Turner has written seventeen books. In recent years he has worked closely with Fons Tompenaars and they have co-authored several books on business culture. A recent publication is 21 Leaders for the 21st Century (McGraw-Hill, 2001). We pick up the conversation with my asking about his first book. Q: One of the things about Radical Man that […]

Leo Burke was at Motorola for 12 years, the last six of which were in Motorola University. During that time, he was Dean and Director of the College of Leadership and Transcultural Studies. More recently he became Associate Dean for Executive Education at the Business School at the University of Notre Dame. There he has […]

Mike Jay is one of the most interesting people I have ever met. He is a bit of a diamond in the rough as a former collegiate football quarterback, US Marine Corporal and recovering consultant and aspiring developmentalist. Prolific in his intake of information and ideas, as well as his integration of these in constructive […]

William R. Torbert, PhD, author and teacher, consultant and artist in his own right, works with Susann Cook-Greuter and others in the application of integral and transformational concepts in leadership and organizations. His most recent book, co-authored with Dalmar Fisher and David Rooke is entitled Personal and Organisational Transformations: Through Action Inquiry. After teaching at Yale, […]

William R. Torbert, PhD, author and teacher, consultant and artist in his own right, works with Susann Cook-Greuter and others in the application of integral and transformational concepts in leadership and organizations. His most recent book, co-authored with Dalmar Fisher and David Rooke is entitled Personal and Organisational Transformations: Through Action Inquiry. After teaching at Yale, […]

Alain Gauthier has served over the past 36 years a large variety of client organizations in France, Germany, Switzerland, Spain, United Kingdom, Brazil, Canada and the United States. He first worked as an associate of McKinsey & Company in Europe, then as a partner of a Paris-based consulting firm, and is currently Executive Director of […]

Ralph Kilmann, www.kilmann.com may be best known for his contribution to the Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Management instrument that is used widely in training programs and consulting. He has authored or co-authored prolifically beyond that, including titles such as Beyond the Quick Fix, Corporate Transformation, Managing Ego Energy and Gaining Control of the Corporate Culture. His consulting practice has included […]

Prasad Kaipa, based in Silicon Valley, is the CEO of SelfCorp Inc.— a company that focuses on aligning individual and organizational objectives. He is trained as a physicist who joined Apple in international marketing and then found his passion in Apple University. He has been a consultant to companies like Boeing, HP, Cisco, Xerox, Ford, and […]

I had the good fortune to have a conversation with Chris Cowan, coauthor of Spiral Dynamics recently. The conversation ranged over a number of subjects. Initially, the subjects were around ideas related to development, generally. Here we share some comments about leadership and the use of Spiral Dynamics in development. Q: Would you summarize how you’re using Spiral […]

In the January 2002 issue of the Integral Leadership Review (Self Management) I briefly discussed developmental psychology and mentionedSusann Cook-Greuter’s work. A few days ago, I asked her the following question. Here it is with her response. Question: “I have been reviewing the materials from the LDP (Leadership Development Profile) and your “Descriptions of Ego-Development Stages of Action Logics.” […]

Tim Sanders, “Love is the Killer App,” Fast Company, February 2002. Back in the mid-eighties, if memory serves, Roger Harrison published an article on love in business. At that time he indicated that we couldn’t really discuss the idea of love because the socio-political dynamics and machismo that dominated the business culture of the time precluded […]

I recently had the privilege of attending a meeting of the Professional Coaching And Mentoring Association chapter in San Francisco. I attended expressly to hear Agnes Mura, a highly successful executive coach from Los Angeles, do a presentation on paradox in executive coaching. (This report is from my perspective and I hope that Agnes and […]

Introduction: You can read about Riane Eisler in the interview by clicking here. However, before you do so you may find the following material to be interesting and in harmony with much of what Riane talked about in our conversation. I spoke with Michael McElhenie, one of the leaders of the “Leadership for Results” United […]

In Part I we explored the situation of how integral is being accepted into the world of academia, some of the factors that deter such acceptance, a bit about Wendelin’s current work, the role of pragmatism and the challenges to integration in the workplace. Thus, integral approaches have a very high potential in leader development. […]

Russ: Wendelin, I am delighted to have the opportunity to explore, clarify and develop the application of integral theory to the complex phenomenon of leadership. I hope this dialogue will be useful to the readers of Integral Leadership Review and far beyond. To begin with, I feel a deep sense of responsibility in entering this dialogue with you. […]

In the previous episode we focussed on comparing the Obama and McCain candidacies for the American presidency as a way oif exploring the mediation lens. Mark suggested that a mediation lens would be helpful and offered a way of seeing the relationship between the vision and action domains. Russ shared an exploration of the differences […]

S O N G Native Bead Brooch While many will have their minds firmly fixed on the story of the butterfly that, by flapping her wings in the forests of Amazonia creates storms in New York, very few will pay attention to the real miracle, which is that of the irreversible transformation in chaos of the pupa […]

Russ closed the last part of this dialogue, “A challenge before us, then, is to demonstrate how multiple lenses can reduce perception of demi-reality and increase perception of reality.” Furthermore he suggested a set of criteria for a case study of the application of multiple lenses to a phenomenon of leadership. Mark: I will make a […]

Mark closed the last installment of this dialogue with something of an extraordinary burst of light in the integral heavens—Table 9.2: Integral Lenses and Theories of Radical Change Leadership. This extraordinary presentation summarizes twenty-four theoretical lenses and our understanding of leaders. Please be sure to review Table 9.2 before continuing in Part 10. Russ: Mark, you’ve […]

In Part 8 of this dialogue Mark laid out six morphological categories of conceptual lenses. These categories are grouped according to their conceptual shape. The idea is that our explanations are deeply metaphorical and those metaphors can be categorized according to basic visual patterns. This is a kind of vision-logic at its most fundamental level of application. […]

In the Part 7 of this dialogue, Mark pointed out the importance of including an ecological lens along with a developmental lensin redressing the imbalanced focus on developmental to the exclusion of ecological in much of the theory related to integral development.So far in our discussion we have identified several lenses that can be used in examining […]

In the Part 6 of this dialogue, Mark laid out an elegant way of mapping and thinking about 1st 2nd and 3rd person at micro, meso and macro levels, as well as the mediating factors in the relationships among these. My discovery is that the track we are on is leading to the necessity for an Integral […]

In the last episode of this dialogue, our conversation turned to process and mediating factors in development. I closed that episode with the following paragraph: The question I will leave us with for our next installment is this: How can the “Basic Activity Triad” and the “Mediating Holon” help us make sense of all of […]

In the last episode our conversation we reached a tentative acceptance of a more relational model of leadership within the multilevel contexts of individual, group and organizational life. Also, the question has been raised about the “space between”, a concept from Martin Buber that Edwards has applied in his integral theory building. Edwards has discussed […]

INTRODUCTION: This is the fourth in a series of email exchanges framed as a dialogue between Mark Edwards, an Australian PhD candidate who has written extensively about integral theory and a member of the Integral Leadership Council, and Russ Volckmann, editor and publisher of the Integral Leadership Review . Our goal is to clarify how integral theory and mapping […]

INTRODUCTION: This is the third in a series of email exchanges framed as a dialogue between Mark Edwards, an Australian PhD candidate who has written extensively about integral theory and is a member of the Integral Leadership Council, and Russ Volckmann, editor and publisher of the Integral Leadership Review. Our goal is to clarify how integral […]

(Click here for Part 1) Russ: There were a couple of themes in your closing statement in Part 1 that I would like to return to before we begin exploring mapping and applications (of course there may arise a variety of themes that we will want to explore before, during and after the more “practical” aspects of our […]

The following material is the beginning of a dialogue between Mark Edwards and Russ Volckmann about integral theory, maps, models and their applications. The focus will be on concepts and relationships among concepts and the like. However, this discussion takes place with the hope of making two contributions. The first is to the development and evolution of […]

The following is an amalgam of two email messages from Dr. Don Beck. Thanks, Russ. Looking forward to Elza’s article. This is one talented, bright, and courageous woman. Amazing that What is Enlightenment? keeps looking for “Integral Women” when there are many right in front of their noses, especially those like Elza. It is one thing to […]

Lisa Norton   “Jazz is not a what, it is a how.”  Bill Evans  “One Halloween, our group is excited to do a scary Halloween show. To start our play we ask the audience to give us an example of something that scares the living daylights out of them. I’m eager to get started, imagining suggestions […]

Robin Lincoln Wood Overview of the Purpose of this Series of Articles – with excerpts from “A Leader’s Guide to ThriveAbility” This series of articles is intended to illuminate how an integral approach to leadership can help us meet the critical leadership challenges of the 21st century. We apply the perspective and frameworks of ThriveAbility […]

Lisa Norton “ How can one design or manufacture in a way that loves all of the children, of all species, for all time?” William McDonough and Michael Braungart To understand the consciousness of violent designing, walk through any dollar store anywhere on the planet. Here, productive forces, harnessed for the sake of production itself, […]

Alfonso Montuori Back in the late 80s and 90s I ranted and raved in print and off about the fact that our understanding of creativity in the US was focused exclusively on individuals—inevitably the lone male genius–and there was no recognition of creative interactions, of musical groups, theater productions, movie making, and the performing arts […]

 Lisa Norton     Peter Jones is Associate Professor at Toronto’s OCAD University (Ontario College of Art and Design), an author and consultant in the emerging field of systemic design, and runs the innovation research firm Redesign Network. Peter spends his time balancing between teaching in the Strategic Foresight and Innovation graduate program in OCADU’s […]

“Shut up,” he explained. Reflections on generative and not-so-generative communication in academia. Alfonso Montuori When I first came to the US to go to graduate school, I spent hours and hours in heated, coffee fueled discussions in the patio of the university cafeteria with just about anybody I could find and often continue late into […]

Lisa Norton  “Everyone designs who devises courses of action aimed at changing existing situations into preferred ones.” Herbert A. Simon  Every human being is always-already a designer but the affordability of 3-D computer prototyping makes that fact more obvious. Over 5 million guns are manufactured each year in the US alone. What’s new is the intersection […]

Alfonso Montuori In August of 2013 I had the pleasure of attending the Integral Theory conference in the Bay Area. I was delighted to see the spirit of openness, inquiry, curiosity, as well as the warmth and collegiality of the event. I confess that I am generally not much of a conference goer. As we […]

Lisa Norton  “The opposite of play is not work. The opposite of play is depression” – Steve Keil Lisa Norton I recently had the chance to learn more about the work of Philipp Guzenuk, the creator of “Happiness in Action: energy sources for peak performance” an innovative approach to leader and organizational development when I […]

History is not an outdated Operating System. Or, why those who ignore history are doomed to reinvent the wheel (and make me cranky). Alfonso Montuori A colleague and I were recently discussing texts for an upcoming course. Robert and Michele Root-Bernstein’s Sparks of genius: The thirteen thinking tools of the world’s most creative people came […]

Lisa Norton “Design creates culture. Culture shapes values. Values determine the future.” – Robert L. Peters in Berman Design thinking methods and approaches are gaining credibility in mainstream corporate, nonprofit and educational contexts.  But what exactly is design thinking and how can it serve integrally informed change work? As with any left quadrant form of expertise, […]

Scott Pochron “No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.” — Heraclitus Note to Readers: As a new contributor to Integral Leadership Review, I thought it appropriate to share some of my personal journey that has shaped my understanding of leadership. I […]

Lisa Norton “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” ― Richard Buckminster Fuller What is the role of design in change work today and how can integral approaches to designing enhance distribution of social benefits? What if we could imagine ways […]

Teaching an Introduction to Leadership Course When Leadership is “Dead.” (Part 1) Alfonso Montuori How do we teach an Introduction to leadership course when Leadership is allegedly “dead?” The discourse and practices of Leadership are undergoing dramatic changes, as we see in these pages. The heroic leadership model has been strongly challenged, not least because […]

Creativity, Empowerment, Inspiration and other Acts of Human Courage Mark McCaslin …the isolation that prevails everywhere… has not fully developed, not reached its limit yet. For every one strives to keep his individuality as apart as possible, wishes to secure the greatest possible fullness of life for himself; but meantime all his efforts result not […]

Don E. Beck Regardless of your own political views, memetic codes, or location on the intensity spectrum (from flame thrower to pragmatic) you must be both concerned and confused as to the current issues in Washington DC. While the words “stalemate, “crazy,” “polarized and soaked with acrimony,” define the condition, it appears the huge gaps […]

STEM to STEAM: Negative Capability in Service to Empowered Creative Participation Lisa Norton At once it struck me, what quality went to form a Man of Achievement, especially in literature, and which Shakespeare possessed so enormously–I mean Negative Capability, that is when man is capable of being in uncertainties. Mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching […]

Obama, Clinton, Pelosi, and the Creative (R)evolution. Alfonso Montuori When the Going Gets Weird… When historians look back on the beginning of the 21st century, and around 2008, I believe they will view it as a time of great historical significance. We are in a “postnormal age,” according to the British futurist Zia Sardar, a […]

Mark L. McCaslin Being involved, as I am, with the Integral Leadership Review, I am often questioned about its purposes and intentions as well as its meaning. These questions set me to considering not only the scope of Integral Leadership but also its place and purpose within the wide domain of leadership studies. I believe […]

On Order, Disorder, Creativity, and Trust Alfonso Montuori History is not something ‘back there,’ something we browse through occasionally for purposes of erudition and arcane knowledge of bygone eras: history is in our flesh and bones–and in our minds. Darwin’s great revolution was to show us that we are our history (Bocchi & Ceruti, 2002). […]

Lisa Norton Act as energy collector and catalyst of proposals, projects and people… in order to give Italy, Europe and the entire world new development perspectives and fresh growth energy. (Renaissance Link) When the context is Italy and the theme is design leadership, singling out any one individual is no easy task. Despite the glittering […]

Lincoln and Polarization Don E. Beck No more shall the war-cry sever; Or the winding river turn red; We shall bury our anger; As we cover the graves of our dead. Love and tears for the Blue; Tears and love for the Gray. – Unknown It will always be difficult for me to separate the […]

Alfonso Montuori Americans have historically been a very practical people. Delving too much into the realm of theory and ideas, let alone epistemology, has often been viewed askance; a somewhat effete egghead distraction from the business of getting things made and done. Theory is a complex and problematic term, and it’s also far more pervasive […]

Lisa Norton Face it, Accept it, Deal with it, Let go of it. Venerable Master Sheng-yen Our pervasive designed worlds have powerful impacts on our consciousness, attitudes and lifestyles, and vice versa. Living and working in Asia over the last decade, has given me an experiential grasp of cultural dispositions that disclose the built world […]

Mark L. McCaslin The responsibility falls to George Washington. The vision of this exceptionally courageous leader standing tall in the longboat with the nation’s new flag symbolically flying behind him is a powerful image. It effectively cemented the image of the leader at the helm, in command and, because we know the outcome, as perennially […]

Mark McCaslin Nature strives towards perfection. – Aristotle I originally began this issue’s column with quite a different idea. I had purposed myself to delve into the notion of Integral Leadership as a philosophy over a defined field. A recent conversation with Russ Volckmann was the catalyst for that idea. Then I learned that one […]

Lisa Norton “Changing, it rests.” -Heraclitus When Russ Volckmann posted an invitation to write about design thinking for ILR on a LinkedIn forum, I jumped at the chance. In this introduction, I’ve shared some of my background through stories from life and work. As I begin this column I am hoping that my contributions to […]

Five Dimensions of Applied Transdisciplinarity Alfonso Montuori There’s an emerging literature arguing for the importance of a transdisciplinary approach, outlining its philosophical roots, and articulating the need for transdisciplinarity in our present situation. Transdisciplinarity is already branching out in many different forms and on many different levels, from the highly theoretical to the more applied. […]

Meshworks Solutions: Doing what Needs to be Done! Don Beck Our Regrets. We were unable to secure this column for this issue. Please see the October issue that is forthcoming. We anticipate the column will resume then. Thanks, Russ

 A Personal Introduction Alfonso Montuori The networked society, with the amazing power of new technology, gives us access to more information than ever before. The problem now is not access to information. It’s how to organize that information, turn it into knowledge, and use that knowledge wisely. This is the challenge of Transdisciplinarity. I want […]

Leading at the Intersection Mark McCaslin Our future, in a global sense of the term, seems to consistently emerge from Intersections of Potential. In addition, it seems quite clear that new knowledge is very often born to the world at the Intersections of Disciplines. Taken together these two intersections would seem to have an evolving […]

The Integral Dance: How a Master Code Pollinates and Preserves the Culture of Bumblebees Don Beck If anyone ever reminded me of a human bumblebee at buzz in the world, it would be the author Howard Bloom in his creative nest in Brooklyn, New York. Actually, his nest is on the second floor of one […]

Putting Wisdom to Work in the World Mark McCaslin Inspiring Accountability in the Workplace I began my teaching career in 1985 as a shop teacher. To this day I remain grateful for the everyday usefulness of the lessons I was taught by so many fine artists and artisans.  The value of these early lessons came […]

“Spiral Dynamics Integral is one of he first integral psychologies now available and, as presented by Don Beck, I give it my highest recommendation. It has profound implications for business, politics, education, and medicine, and it will give you the tools to begin applying these revolutionary ideas in your own field immediately. Don’t miss it!”                                                            […]

Putting Wisdom to Work in the World Adventures of Ideas Mark McCaslin [We are delighted to announce the beginning of a new column that will be appearing in each issue of Integral Leadership Review. Mark McCaslin is an innovator and is in passionate pursuit of learning through sense- and meaning-making. But he doesn’t stop there. […]

By pointing to achievable next steps for America’s cultural evolution, integral philosophy accordingly offers a realistic remedy for America’s political dysfunction.

Irina Kopaneva, Pamela Shockley-Zalabak, Sherwyn Morreale There is much agreement that these are troubling times, characterized by high levels of distrust of many if not most U.S. leaders and institutions.  Indeed, political scientists and other observers of the national scene have noted that over time trust in the U.S. government has waned and never returned to […]

Michael Wicker The pandemic and the subsequent isolation that so many have experienced has caused unprecedented interruptions in the lives of people. No more is this as true as it is in the working lives of people, people who may have been forced not only to live in isolation from most of the world but also […]

In these challenging times, it is not just leaders and leadership that are needed, but highly effective leaders and leadership to help institutions of higher learning both survive and thrive.

Said E. Dawlabani Those who are familiar with Clare W. Graves’ work, know him as the academic behind a more popular conception known as Spiral Dynamics. The theory and the book with the same name were introduced to the world by Don E. Beck, PhD and Christopher C. Cowan in 1996.  While their model preserves much […]

“Briefly, what I am proposing is that the psychology of the mature human being is an unfolding, emergent, oscillating, spiralling process marked by progressive subordination of older, lower- order behaviour systems to newer, higher-order systems as man's existential problems change.”

Sue L. T. McGregor Introduction Transdisciplinarity (TD) has evolved over the last 40 years as a way to grapple with the complex, wicked problems facing humanity (McGregor, 2015; Nicolescu, 2014). Examples include health inequality, climate change, unsustainability, loss of diversity, poverty, uneven development, and unequal income and wealth distribution. Trans takes us beyond multi (more than one) and inter (between, among) disciplinarity, […]

Dena Michele Rosko The power lines zapped overhead in the late September sky as I crossed the open field, past the new and empty play toy, and around the newly painted white building with tall and lean windows and vacant eyes. On that warm late summer day, I had finished photographing the 10th anniversary of […]

Introduction: The Year When the Earth Discontinued This year has proven to be challenging, indeed! It is full of sociocultural, medical, economical, and psychological turmoil for many people across the world. Large-scale events erupted and interrupted continuities of our everyday existence. 2020 can be called The Year When the Earth Stood Still—and Discontinuity and Discord prevailed. […]

Michael Morrow-Fox, Maureen Metcalf Creating a Company that Perpetually Evolves: Methodology Soup As the COVID-19 Pandemic turned businesses worldwide upside down, business consultants were flooded with executive requests for help. Many business leaders were dumbfounded to find themselves on daily video calls witnessing staff reactions void of data and filled with anecdotal concerns. Normally competent […]

Jaap Geerlof COVID-19: The Latest Pandemic On the last day of 2019, health officials from China reported to the World Health Organization (WHO) about a group of 41 patients with similar symptoms of an unknown type of pneumonia. The outbreak in China became world news. On January 7, 2020, Chinese authorities identified a novel coronavirus […]

Anna Frost When COVID-19 and the subsequent quarantines broke out in the United States beginning in March 2020, the news was unsettling but not incredible. Being that I have completed years of advocacy and research for another zoonotic disease—lyme disease—it was clear to me that lyme patients have insight and tools that may inform people […]

Tracy Cooper “I’m no artist; I can’t even draw a stick figure!”  How many students have you known who say something like this? Too often students, by the time they are graduate students, have effectively sealed off creative thinking as occurring not only solely in the realm of the fine artist but also as something they are […]

Toxic leadership and followership remain emerging sectors of inquiry within the overall field of leadership study. As a result of the relative paucity of research on both toxic leadership and followership, there remains a continued need for scale refinement in order to ensure valid and reliable scales are available to measure the constructs. The present […]

Melita Balas Rant Introduction A central regularity discovered by the neo-Piagetian school of constructive human development is that adults (like children) can further evolve in their cognitive, affective and behavioral tendencies. Second, the main tendency is an evolution towards greater complexity, to reconstruct more inclusive identities, and adopt more complex meaning-making and value systems. Third, […]

by Daryl S. Paulson, PhD BioScience Laboratories, Inc. The coronavirus has been on this planet for years and changes from time to time. COVID-19 is the strain of coronavirus that is causing the current pandemic. The virus’ original host was animals, but in Wuhan, China, it switched hosts to humans. The virus mutated slightly in its replication […]

Devon Almond When a meditation college from Mainland USA identified the most remote place in the world as an ideal location for higher education study-abroad programs, the college initially looked within for commitment from 10 of its current undergraduate students who together formed the initial cohort of an experimental semester in sustainability education. For the […]

 Alexandre de Faria, Patrick Smytzek, Zsuzsanna Gaspar, and Maximilian Manderscheid Glossary[2] Socio-ecological system: A socio-ecological system consists of ‘a bio-geo-physical’ unit and           its associated social actors and institutions. Socio-ecological systems are complex and adaptive and delimited by spatial or functional boundaries surrounding particular ecosystems and their problem context.   Sustainability: A dynamic equilibrium between […]

Robertson Work More and more people are becoming aware that we live in a critical moment of human history and evolution. We are facing system-wide crises including climate chaos and ecological collapse; patriarchy and misogyny; economic and social deprivation; oligarchy and corporatocracy; racism and xenophobia; and perpetual warfare and violence. In order to save humanity […]

Sue L. T. McGregor Higher education is one of the most important arenas in which the transdisciplinary (TD) approach should be applied (Güvenen, 2016). Fortunately, educational institutions are “evolving [so they can] answer the demand for transdisciplinary skills” (Güvenen, 2016, p. 75). In concert, “educators are recognizing the vital significance of designing a transdisciplinary curriculum” […]

Edward Kelly According to this model of adult development, less than 10% of our leaders have the developmental capacity to match the complexity of the issues they face, and that includes President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Theresa May. This mismatch, which gets resolved at the next stage in our or their development, looks more […]

Otto Laske While resurgent interest in the writings of the Frankfurt School, especially Adorno, is over-focused on the ideological content of his writings, a much more relevant aspect of Adorno’s work is that of a teacher of ‘deep’, or dialectical, thinking. Adorno’s ‘Negative Dialektik’ spells out his teaching only in a form once-removed, rather than […]

Ray Gehani Many prominent leaders and major media have almost unanimously acknowledged Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869 – 1948) as one of the 20th Century’s greatest leaders for humankind (Time, 1999).  Gandhi is also recognized as a firm believer and practitioner of truth and nonviolence with high integrity.  Albert Einstein noted, “Generations to come will scarce […]

Cristina Alcalde, M. Gabriela Alcalde and Gonzalo Alcalde             It’s 2019 and racial equity is increasingly put forth as a promising framework for understanding and undoing centuries of racist and colonialist power structures. The framework of equity is both an important and urgent one to consider, given that a convergence […]

Don Dulchinos Integral thinkers Don Beck and Ken Wilber have both cited Pierre Teilhard de Chardin’s noosphere as a model or metaphor for the Turquoise stage of human development.  Teilhard spoke of “a harmonised collectivity of consciousnesses equivalent to a sort of super-consciousness.” [1] I published a book entitled Neurosphere (after noosphere), in 2005, the […]

Ian Roth It is self-evident that the most useful education is one that facilitates learning-how-to-learn.  While the reasons for past failures to provide such an education are undoubtedly multivariate, among them must certainly be counted the apparent difficulty of delivering such an education.  The more bureaucratized and institutionalized the educational context becomes, the more this […]

Michael Schwartz The Project This paper is prolegomena to art’s transdisciplinarity, a project ontologically motivated through inquiry into the transcendental conditions of art. It opens with the question: “what does the socio-cultural world need to be like for art to have emerged and endured as a human activity and product?” A answer to this question, […]

There are two foundational vectors of consciousness and self-development: vertical and horizontal. Vertical Development is studied by developmental psychology. The psychology of child development studies stages of consciousness and selfhood formation in children. The study of Adult Development investigates the trajectory of an adult personality through the stages of increasing maturity of meaning-making and self-sense. […]

The visionary philosopher Ken Wilber (1974) proposed integral leadership theory while exploring the role of human consciousness at the individual level. Wilber gradually added more richness with complexity, comprehensiveness, trans-disciplinarity, and inclusiveness. In the 1990s, Wilber also noted that the Western empirical orientation of leadership was often rooted in the external and material world, with […]

It is commonly recognised that language is a reflection of culture and the reality portrayed by that culture. The reverse of this relationship, despite being less often considered, is no less impactful. The ways language is used serve to create patterns of thought, beliefs, behaviours, cultures, and, ultimately, realities. Wittgenstein claimed that the limits of […]

  Getting rid of formal bosses does not mean hierarchy disappears. That is a common misunderstanding in this new tendency towards boss-less and flat organizations. In this paper we resort to integral theory and its application to business, 3D Management, to explain how hierarchy is a natural and desirable condition fully compatible with self-management. The […]

Robin Lincoln Wood During the 1960’s and 1970’s there was a growing awareness amongst political, cultural, business and scientific leaders around the globe that the spread of nuclear weapons and our excessive exploitation of the earth’s precious resources might spell the end of humanity as we know it. As Albert Einstein had put it a […]

J. Kim Wright and Luemara Wagner (with special thanks to Don Beck)             Kim:  I was a speaker at the Spiral Dynamics Summit on the Future in Dallas in April and was asked to write an article on the subject covered in my presentation: Legal Wizardry: What will the legal […]

Bjarni S. Jonsson Collective Wisdom The Iceland National Assembly Social Experiment Following the financial crisis, the Icelandic nation was in a state of shock, anger and despair. While it was a difficult period, it proved to be a very fertile ground to organize a dialogue event involving a large number of people to discuss honestly […]

Said Dawlabani “It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future” Yogi Berra, American baseball philosopher Welcome to the Age of Disruption Over the last few years, I have been obsessed with finding answers to the myriad of questions that address the nature of change. More specifically, I’ve wanted to know why so many futurists […]

Michiel Doorn This paper explores whether inventions and technologies can be “civilized” such that their embedding in our social, biological & economic fabric leads to the flourishing of all life on our planet in ethical, thriveable ways. The paper also explores the power of “story” to disseminate the wisdom that Spiral Dynamics can offer and […]

Keith Rice The Spiral Dynamics Summit on the Future (Dallas, 20-22 April 2018) was a fairly awesome event. A gathering of leading Gravesian practitioners (both on the stage and in the audience), partly to honour Spiral Dynamics co-developer Don Beck and partly to focus on how the Gravesian approach can be used to tackle the […]

Rica Viljoen   In his 2006 book, The Crucible – Forging South Africa’s Future, Don Beck[1] described that thinking systems are deep-core intelligences that form as a coping response to changing life conditions. He promised Clare Graves[2] that he would always work theoretically purely, and over the years highlighted the following assumptions:       […]

Nicholas Beecroft  For the first time in human history, a global civilization is emerging. It was initiated by the European empires which first connected together the whole world with trade and has been super-catalyzed by the technologies of the airplane, television and internet. In the West, Governments are becoming increasingly authoritarian, invading our privacy and […]

Maretha Prinsloo & Riana Prinsloo Introduction Human survival is premised on the capacity to continuously ascribe meaning to stimuli and acting on these perspectives in order to achieve certain goals. This involves a full range of integrated cognitive processes referred to as, inter alia, thinking skills, intellectual functioning, reasoning, problem solving, perceptual frameworks, creativity and […]

Bonnitta Roy The ability to understand how complexity creeps into infrastructure development processes, enables leaders to identify, anticipate and avoid “solutions” that escalate systemic complexity and thereby increase systemic risk. Systemic risk in infrastructure development has local, regional and global impact that shows up as lack of accountability, skyrocketing costs, political instability, operational fragility, and […]

Tracy Cooper “It seems to me what is called for is an exquisite balance between two conflicting needs: the most skeptical scrutiny of all hypotheses that are served up to us and at the same time a great openness to new ideas. Obviously those two modes of thought are in some tension. But if you […]

Otto Laske & Jan De Visch Introduction Dynamic collaboration between members of a team is impossible without self-management. Self-management plays an increasingly important role also in society. Civic Movements are good examples of efficient groups without proclaimed leadership. Companies, too, increasingly tend to strive towards self-organization which, ultimately, is based on self-management. For them, decisions […]

Kathia Castro Laszlo For the last 20 years, my work has been focused on developing individual and collective capacities for social change. Systems and complexity thinking have been the theoretical foundation for my work on evolutionary learning communities (Laszlo, 2000) and evolutionary leadership (Laszlo, 2012). In my practice, I began to notice that the ability […]

William R. Torbert* *With deep thanks for the improvements suggested by Aliki Nicolaides, Mary Stacey, Richard Izard, Nancy Wallis, and Elaine Herdman-Barker. As shown in this review, fifty years of research on real-world practice, guided by the Collaborative Developmental Action Inquiry (CDAI) paradigm of social science and social action, have documented more powerful impacts than […]

Rick Fenwick Jr.  Abstract In many organizational settings, companies use the team concept in order to accomplish organizational goals in a timely and efficient manner. In manufacturing settings, organizations use the team concept to complete tasks such as building products in bulk quantities, as well as provide safety to employees. In this type of setting, […]

Mark Bell Abstract Movement toward a new theory is framed on distinctions between toxic leadership and juvenile leadership in that toxic leadership cannot fully explain certain aspects, behaviors, and actions of certain negative, dysfunctional, destructive, or otherwise ‘bad’ leadership realities. Juvenile leadership involves four distinct elements including pettiness, emotionalism, connivingness, and dramaturgical activity. Juvenile leadership […]

Jaap Geerlof  Abstract The complexifying world places contemporary leaders for major challenges in leading organizations. The progressive complexity of the organizational and social context often surfaces as paradox. Surprisingly, paradoxes are hardly addressed in leadership epistemology, or in leadership development models. Contrarily, management and organizational science scholars have embraced the necessity to engage paradox in […]

Ron Cacioppe Summary This article reviews the definitions, characteristics and research dealing with mindfulness, meditation and flow and their positive effects on individual health, interpersonal relations, workplace engagement and performance improvement. This article explores the role of integral leadership to provide conditions for mindfulness in flow (mindflow) using an integral framework. There is growing interest […]

Tom Murray Overview This article began as a series of short white papers providing various types of background information about STAGES and its predecessors. Its sections are relatively independent and readers with prior knowledge should be able to skip to and read each independently, or in any order.  For those new to the field, it […]

Terri O’Fallon, Tom Murray, Geoff Fitch, Kim Barta, and John Kesler Executive Summary Our goal in this article is to respond to the Critique‘s call for rigor by providing detailed explanations, and also, to provide further answers to questions and misconceptions that may exist about the STAGES model—therefore the article is rather long. For those who want […]

Sue L.T. McGregor The focus of this paper was transdisciplinary collaboration and what is being said in the literature about the challenges of this aspect of transdisciplinarity work. A conceptual literature review revealed four conceptual threads: (a) managing group processes, (b) reflexivity, (c) common learning process, and (d) facilitating integration and synthesis. These challenges mirror […]

Gerard Bruitzman Many of us understand that humanity is living amidst an unprecedented global meta-crisis, marked by many deep, complexly interrelated, and compounding local, national and global crises: educational, ecological, economic, health, moral, political, social, technological, et al. We tend to respond with a mix of at least three ways to these crises. First, we […]

Otto Laske If a simple epigram could sum up what is essential to thinking dialectically it should be that it is the art of thinking the coincidence of distinctions and connections. Its essence is fluidity structured around the hard core of the concept of absence and the 1M-4D relations it implicates. – Roy Bhaskar (1993, p. […]

 Otto Laske Part II: Dialoging Tools of Dialectic Using a Short Table of Thought Forms The reader now realizes that in order to understand the world around it, the thinking ego uses thought forms, and that grouped together thought forms make up a living, transformational system that increasingly develops over a person’s life time (“mind”). […]

Otto Laske   Part III: Teaching Programs for, and Applications of, Dialogical Dialectic How to Develop a Teaching Program for Dialectical Thinking Teaching dialectical thinking in a world dominated by logical thinking is a task of tall order. There is apparently no place for such thinking in a world governed by algorithms and formal- logical […]

Otto Laske “The major problems in the world (today) are the result of the difference between how nature works and the way people think.” – Gregory Bateson “Logic merely defines how the world must be if we are to successfully apply certain techniques.” – Roy Bhaskar This article explains in the most simple terms possible how […]

Jim Ritchie-Dunham and Maureen Metcalf This paper provides a high-level framework for leaders to refine their approach to increasing team effectiveness by leveraging the concept of “room to roam.” Room to roam looks at five key variables we believe are foundation when looking at leadership successful performance in groups. For people working in groups, we […]

Eugene Pustoshkin The idea of “teal organizations” described in Frederick Laloux’s book Reinventing Organizations is gaining popularity today both globally and in Russia. Hundreds of entrepreneurs and business leaders in various companies—from IT to banks—are seeking new forms of self-organizing. They’re tired of the limitations that are inherent in classical hierarchical subdivisions, their low efficiency […]

Alexander Malakhov Translated from Russian by Eugene Pustoshkin Those philosophers, who disagreed with the new regime but stayed in the country, suffered tragic fate. One characteristic example of that is Pavel Florenskiy (1882–1937), who was known as “the Russian Leonardo da Vinci.” His first book The Pillar and Ground of the Truth, written when he […]

Alexander Malakhov   Translated from Russian by Eugene Pustoshkin The Russian Empire, the Soviet Union, and, in many ways, contemporary Russia have been uniquely distinctive spaces, only partially included into other civilizational projects. The collective spirit of these spaces is rarely understood by foreigners and, in fact, not always grasped by the very inhabitants of […]

Lynn Harrison, PhD This is a story about how coaching based on integral leadership concepts helped bring about the successful transformation of a leader formerly viewed by coworkers as highly abrasive. For deep and sustained change to occur, the work needed to explore not only externally visible behaviors and practices, but the powerful inner values, […]

Mark Davenport Are you old enough to have heard this from someone perhaps your own age, but probably younger than you, but certainly not older than you?  If so. How did you feel upon hearing it? For me it was a bit like being called “Sir” in a shop for the first time. I thought […]

Zach Schlosser Abstract In this paper I outline a trans-lineage spirituality rooted in our intrinsic and discovered desires. I begin with a critique of Buddhism and then draw on insights from Saniel Bonder’s work developing the contemporary awakening school Waking Down in Mutuality, Bonnitta Roy’s Process Model of Integral Theory and her notion of View, Bruce […]

Greg Park Abstract In today’s successful twenty first century business organisation the operational leader is to be regarded less as the “dinosaur”, to be culled in the interests of efficiency, but rather as the pivotal leadership role in re-defining and effectively implementing an alternative organisational logic. This new leadership logic takes into account, in an […]

Jon Freeman Our core human questions have not changed in centuries.   “Who am I, where did “all this” come from, where is it going, how does it work.….?”  Our answers have evolved, increasing in sophistication as our frameworks have grown and as we have added to the information available.  That journey of widening perspective is […]

Michael Schwartz     Disenchantment, Philosophy, Meta-Philosophy Disenchantment is a recurring, if at times underground, concern in contemporary continental and comparative philosophy. To get some quick bearings, let us recall Weber’s famous characterization of modern instrumental reason and its rationalizing processes as dissolving and displacing pre-modern senses of an inherently meaningful and magical world. Similarly, […]

Eugene Pustoshkin In this article I want to tell about the concept of multidimensional communication pioneered in Holoscendence, an integral meta-method of human development, first introduced and developed by Sergey Kupriyanov, PhD in Medicine, a Russian-born Integral therapist from Helsinki, Finland (Kupriyanov 2013). Dr. Kupriyanov—during the many years of his work in USSR as a […]

Alexander Malakhov, with Eugene Pustoshkin In the past hundred years numerous thinkers around the world—from the United States to the Soviet Union and India—came to believe that if the human civilization wants to survive and reach new horizons, societies and people that constitute those societies must overcome fragmentariness and prevailing prejudices and learn to see […]

Sanja Veršić Russian Cosmic Ideas and Energy Reading. From materials presented at the IEC, May 2014 ABSTRACT In this paper the attention is drawn to the energetic dimension of the human space of thought scientifically known as noosphere. The term is elaborated by the Russian natural scientist Vladimir Vernadsky, one of the prominent thinkers of […]

The Crystal Mind conference’s organizers Special Russia Issue Guest Editor’s Note: To me the Crystal Mind Conference is one of the brightest and most interesting consciousness-related events in Russia. For my country, it is one of the first attempts to collectively pioneer mindfulness in a systematic and professional manner, with skillful media coverage, and a […]

Maxim Arzumanyan Leadership is stepping forth on the management arena Major demand for leadership as a managing approach was generated during transition stage from planned to market economy and later on to innovative economy in some segments. In the first case the task was to redistribute resources and administration, in the second to focus on […]

Anastasia Gosteva Four years ago I was sitting in the meditation hall in my master’s ashram when suddenly the whole world became alive. The chair I was sitting on, the carpet, the column, the air—every inch of matter and space was alive and pulsating with love, it was love itself. Technically I saw that my […]

Anatoly Balyaev My inner child has been asking to speak about one of his favorite themes for a long time. This time I won’t stop him from doing it. Many years ago, there were lots of amazing sci-fi stories in my young life, and I’ve grown up absorbing their significant vision of future with all […]

Milana Ragulina Translated from Russian by Eugene Pustoshkin In this essay I want to discuss several specific questions that are important for me as a scholar-researcher who wants to continue applying the integral methodology in my own work. The first question is related to the specificity of Siberia—a region which is non-homologous and full of […]

Diana Belotserkovskaya Translated from Russian by Eugene Pustoshkin Education is the initiation of a human being into his or her own innermost nature; the Force which originates in “an infinite potential-in-potentiality,” given to an individual at birth due to the nature of his or her origination from the unitive primordial principle, the infinite Force. Education plays a […]

Oleg Bakhtiyarov (Translated from Russian by Eugene Pustoshkin) Today the entire corpus of psychotechniques is so vast that one could find practices aimed at both resolving psychological, social or medical problems and developing supranormative skills necessary for performing extreme tasks in operational or intellectual activities. There are also, however, non-pragmatic motivations such as the drive […]

Anastasia Nekrasova and Irina Smirnova An expanded individual: an end or a means? Coaching in Russia is a relatively new field. Although in its cradle, developmental coaching awakes curiosity – it seems to have powers to transform people and systems. How do those coaches use this power? Who benefits from the transformations they induce? This article […]

George Koupatadze Background & the Context My story is that of a typical immigrant.  My family and I decided to immigrate to the United States from Russia during the time of great turmoil in our home country – after the Soviet Union collapsed and together with it – our familiar way of life.  As the […]

Elena Ryuse In this short essay I want to discuss some actual examples and aspects of creating and developing a training system in Russian and international companies as seen through the perspective of the Integral approach.  I will briefly review some methods and tools which have proven to be successful and been applied in business […]

Elena Ryuse How does the coaching market develop in a Russian business context? What companies try to choose this tool for development of employees? This article will help in answering these questions. Two decades ago Spiral Dynamics emerged in America as a complexly structured system of organizational and cultural transformation (this system was founded by […]

Jon Freeman So what’s this “Teal” organisations thing? There has been some major buzz generating about “Teal” organisations.  It started with Frederic Laloux’s book “Reinventing Organizations”.  There are some good videos on YouTube of Frederic talking about it and if you haven’t read it, you can easily get an overview.  The buzz has been amplified […]

Tom Bruno-Magdich  Hello fellow Integral Leadership Review reader. I think it’s only fair that I disclose who I am and what I stand for before you spend your valuable time reading this article. I’m a firm believer that fear is behind most, if not all, of the worst things human beings do to each other. […]

Peter Merry         Introduction As we stand on the edge of a new era, with old beliefs, institutions and values crumbling around us, a new realisation is dawning in the minds of many. This is not just an upgrade of our current civilisation. This is a new starting point. From this point […]

Maureen Metcalf & Carla Morelli Abstract This paper provides a high-level framework for leading transformative change that increases the probability of success by integrating leadership and culture into the process. It is based on decades of practical consulting experience incorporating integral models into solid consulting and change leadership frameworks. This material is intended for leaders exploring options […]

Tracy M. Cooper, Ph.D. Abstract This paper presents a view of emergence as an integral leader in the community of individuals who have the personality trait sensory processing sensitivity, aka: highly sensitive people or HSPs.  Written from a first person point of view I specifically recount the organic pathway that eventually led to my emergence […]

Tim Winton So, something happened at the Integral Theory Conference. Four weeks now since it ended and its still happening. Not with quite the same intensity, but intense enough that it feels like one of those things where once the experience has been had, the power of it means that things are never really going […]

Daniel Álvarez Lamas                                                                                     María Ortega Luna   Abstract This article is one of the […]

Tom Murray PART I Introduction: Dialogue and the Pulse of Freedom Dialogue invokes ideals of equality, participation, freedom, collaboration, responsibility, diversity, creativity, and adaptation. A central theme in the advancement of human society is the movement from rigid and authoritarian to more responsive, democratic, and thus dialogic social practices. Open, free, authentic, rich, and reciprocal […]

Judith L. Glick-Smith I’m all about flow. Being in a flow state brings me a sense of joy and the feeling of being authentic in the moment. This is a topic I have been studying for eight years and with which I feel intimately connected. Since beginning my study of flow—what it is, what triggers […]

David MacLeod Abstract This paper considers current concerns about resource depletion (“energy descent”) and the unsustainability of current economic structures, which may indicate we are entering a new era signaled by the end of growth. Using the systems thinking tool of PatternDynamics™, developed by Tim Winton, this paper seeks to integrate multiple natural patterns in […]

Alain Gauthier Abstract The purpose of this paper is to explore – from an integral perspective – what it means and what it takes to transcend and include individual leadership in moving toward evolutionary co-leadership, as well as the triple impact it can have – at the individual, group, and societal levels. There are profound […]

Giorgio Piacenza Some ancient seminal ideas from previous Earth-respecting traditions – in spite of originating in largely pre-modern stage societies – are still essentially compatible TODAY with Integral Theory and with other integrative approaches. These are integral-level ideas embedded across time within the main cultural-social developmental stages. Apparently, many of these ideas did occur in agrarian economies […]

Sahlan Momo Bombastic! These are not thoughts these are stones, milestone of a human condition in which the self is both in itself and in the other. The other and the I, the eternal contenders turning partners to bear witness to a recovered unity. No longer the I and the Other, the other and the […]

(In Memory of Roy Bhaskar 1944-2014) Michael Schwartz Roy Bhaskar, who passed away last fall, was a leading philosopher and meta-disciplinarian who founded the school of Critical Realism, an international academic movement encompassing many research domains, including an annual international conference, a peer-reviewed journal, and four active book series on Routledge press. Bhaskar himself wrote […]

Whitney McIntyre Miller and Zachary Gabriel Green Peace leadership is the mobilization of action for just change. When people are motivated to act individually and function collectively for the benefit of humanity and the planet, peace leadership is present. Central to peace leadership is a desire for inclusion and cohesion whereby individuals are enabled to live in liberty […]

Ginger Grant Summary Whether they admit it or not, our organizations are in trouble and face an uncertain future. The world in which they operate is changing rapidly and fundamentally yet the majority of our current organizational leaders continue to be command-control driven and to operate in much the same way as they have done […]

Cheryl Whitelaw Abstract: This article describes a project at the NorQuest College Center for Intercultural Education to develop an inclusion model for a post-secondary, two-year college. Inclusion = Diversity + Engagement is a model for action based on the integration of Integral theory, particularly the all quadrants component of the AQAL model by Ken Wilber […]

Tom Atlee Polarization is rooted in dichotomous thinking – binary, oppositional, polarized perspectives that have been with us for thousands of years.  The problems and insights presented by dichotomous thinking have been long recognized, along with transpolarizing perspectives that provide us with positive ways to appreciate dichotomy and deal with it and the false choices it […]

Don Edward Beck Dr. Don Beck In the Beginning…  Still fresh in my mind is a story from my youth, one often told by both teachers and clerics to dramatize the importance of people in whatever kind of world we were able to imagine. A youngster was given a puzzle that had a picture of […]

Bruce Schuman One way to understand integral politics involves seeing the world through just a few deeply intuitive principles. These ideas, grounded in wholeness and an instinct for inclusion, are widely understood by leading-edge thinkers and spiritual/ecological communitarians all over the world. Sometimes these ideas are seen as the expression of a universal archetype that […]

Maureen Metcalf Abstract How can leaders be authentic and encourage others to do the same while concurrently meeting the needs of the overall team and organization? This chapter explores the process of becoming a more authentic leader by applying the Innovative Leadership model. It walks through the five elements of the innovative leadership model then […]

Otto Laske In this text, I focus on the central relevance of interviewing skills in being able to lead a dialog in the structured way made possible by the Constructive Developmental Framework (CDF), whether it be social-emotional or cognitive. I do so in the context of showing that the certification as a Master Developmental Consultant/Coach […]

Arul Dev and Manoj Pavitran Introduction Telos, is a model of consciousness based on the Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo. Developed by Manoj Pavitran and Arul Dev, the first version of the model looked upon consciousness as having seven notes. While a detailed write up is available in the ILR article that was published in […]

Kazuma Matoba 1.  Communication: The Issue At the beginning of this third millennium AD, the world has achieved remarkable developments in global and instantaneous communication. Yet, in spite of these achievements, terrible human issues still persist due in large part to the darker side of cultural and individual diversity. In some way, these issues are […]

Third in a Three Part Series Edward J Kelly Abstract This is the third in a series of articles for the Integral Leadership Review in which I have attempted to explain my research on adult development. As readers of the previous two articles will note, I have explored this topic in depth by looking at […]

 The Election and the Indian Psyche Ashok Malhotra & Raghu Ananthanarayanan India is at an inflexion point. An old civilization is coming to terms with modernity. At Sumedhas Academy for Human Context (www.sumedhas.org) we have been examining the nature and processes of the Indian Psyche with deep interest. As India takes steps towards development, it […]

Paul Hess The modern corporation has many demands placed upon it by various stakeholders: investors, customers, employees, communities, government, representatives of the natural environment, etc. How should corporations respond to these stakeholders? There are three major possibilities: to prioritize one stakeholder, to address all stakeholders separately, or to serve all stakeholders as part of a […]

Eugene Pustoshkin We live in truly interesting and turbulent times, as the events of 2014 show us. Geopolitical and sociocultural landscapes, gigantic tectonic plates of meanings and socioeconomic factors begin to move, bringing forth noticeable shifts and re-distributions of power relations. It is extraordinarily difficult to orient in the sequence of sociopolitical earthquakes and hurricanes, […]

Mino Dallosto The mastery of mental models, the ability to identify, test and change the images of the world that we carry within us promise to be one of the most spectacular progress of the learning organizations. – Peter Senge, The Fifth Discipline What are MM, what are they made of, how many types of […]

Perspectives on Integral Inter- and Trans-Disciplinary Re-Search  Wendelin Küpers “Your planet is very beautiful,” [said the little prince]. “Has it any oceans?” “I couldn’t tell you,” said the geographer… “But you are a geographer!” “Exactly,” the geographer said. “But I am not an explorer. I haven’t a single explorer on my planet. It is not […]

Anouk Brack Are you missing out on 75% of professional leadership potential? Deploy the 3-D developmental strategy and transcend the limits of competence-based leadership development. This article will describe what the next level in leadership development is and how to access it. Firstly, the strengths and limitations of the concept of competence building are explained. […]

Sue L.T. McGregor This article introduces the idea of creating and spreading a transdisciplinarity meme (herein called the TDMeme). After defining meme, an overview of a recent attempt to meme map climate change will be shared (Karafiath & Brewer, 2013). Then, the model emerging from this memeatic strategy will be used to introduce the idea […]

Robert Wayne Johnston In an Integral Leadership Review article I articulated the importance of becoming a proficient integral self-manager as a prerequisite to effective integral leadership (Johnston 2010).  After much reflection about providing readers a theoretical foundation for integral self-management I decided on telling an original allegory (story) which would depict my foundational ‘working hypothesis’ […]

Mike Kitson Introduction “IT is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife;” so writes Jane Austin at the start of Pride and Prejudice.  In 1813 when this was first published there were many “truths” that would have been “universally acknowledged” as […]

Translated by Eugene Pustoshkin Eugene Pustoshkin lives in St. Petersburg, Russia. He currently serves as the Chief Editor of Eros and Kosmos (see: http://eroskosmos.org/english), a recently founded Russian online magazine; he is also the Bureau Chief / Associate Editor for Russia at Integral Leadership Review. A few years ago he graduated as clinical psychologist from […]

David Lipchitz and Paul Freinkel Abstract Africa is experiencing unprecedented economic growth, and is gaining attention as an opportunity for international investment. At the same time brutal war, genocide, famine, rampant corruption, and ethnic violence remain fresh in African memories and current affairs. Understanding and navigating this complex business environment falls on business leaders who […]

Oliver Ngodo  Introduction Africa’s problems keep mounting, assuming greater complexity by day. Concerned individuals and groups seek solutions in their different areas of interest or specialization, thus being partial ab initio, with the result that their different perspectives are everything except holistic. Solutions proffered consequently differ greatly among scholars and practitioners on even the basic […]

Chief Emeka Anyaoku In the gallery of world statesmen of the twentieth century, Nelson Mandela occupies an exceptional position. His name will be forever linked with the struggle of the South African people to end apartheid, the coping stone of the racism and the injustices to which they had been subjected for so long.  However, […]

A Distinction Between the Best Leader Versus the Great Leader Yene Assegid Many of us are familiar with Lao Tzu’s quote: “A leader is best when people barely know he exists, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves.” And yes, in ordinary situations, the best leader may […]

Israel R. Kabashiki Abstract Purpose – This paper intends to explore leadership in sub-Saharan Africa. Design/methodology/approach – The paper is based on ideas developed from reading editorials and articles on leadership in several journals. The study is also based on discoveries from a survey administered to some Africans to gather their perception about leadership in […]

Kim Hermanson Rumi wrote, “Don’t look for me in a human shape.
I am inside your looking. No need
 for form with a love this strong.” To my mind, Rumi’s lines refer to the power that metaphors have on our ability to see the world around us. Metaphors are “inside our looking.” They don’t have a […]

Alla Ratner Alla Ratner Introduction This article describes the benefits of spiritually empowered practice in business and beyond. Our company provides guidance to entrepreneurial leaders who come from Russia in the hopes of finding their business niche in the United States. We help these emerging Russian-American leaders to incorporate spiritual concepts in their development plans. […]

Nancy L. Southern, Jorge Taborga, and Mara Zabari Abstract Our work in creating opportunities for transformative learning for individuals and organizations has surfaced a pattern that needs attention and consideration.  That pattern is an over reliance on knowledge power that keeps us focused on acquiring more information, often from experts, planning and strategizing based on […]

Maureen Metcalf and James Brenza Introduction This paper will evaluate “Big Data” project implementations through an integral lens and a transformation implementation lens to identify key success factors driving successful projects and also identifying what is missing in failed projects.  We selected “Big Data” projects because of their complexity and our belief that successful implementation […]

Michael J McEwan After a couple of decades building and leading high-performing teams, and finding it took between 2 and 7 months to develop this level of performance, I decided there has to be a quicker way of doing this. I wanted people to go straight from meeting each other into behaving as a high-performance […]

Gerard Bruitzman God became man so that man might become God. – Saint Athanasius, Saint Augustine, Saint Cyril of Alexandria, Meister Eckhart, Jacob Boehme, and many others (W Perry, 2008, p. 23) You see yourself as the drop in the ocean, but you are also the ocean in the drop. – Rumi (online) I have […]

Brian McConnell Abstract: Identified as a facet of psychosocial experience in something Ken Wilber has termed dissociation, this article looks at similarly related phenomenology as recounted by various others in apportioning its pathological effects across a broad swath of global consciousness.  Advocating contemplative practice as a mode for translating theory to application, the article also […]

Giorgio Piacenza Cabrera Introduction      Father Anthony de Mello SJ is considered one of the foremost mystical theologians of the late Twentieth Century. His simple and direct approach to life continues to untie all kinds of blockages preventing man’s acceptance of his spiritual nature, even decades after his unexpected death. De Mello’s radiated authenticity, love for […]

Marika Ronthy We need a new understanding of what leadership is all about and the skills that must be developed to meet the requirements of a new world. We also need dynamic tools for development and transformation. Why do we need a new understanding? Why do we need new methods and new tools? Why can […]

Otto Laske To memory of social critic Herbert Marcuse (1898-1979) Abstract In this paper, I am taking a critical, socio-historical perspective on what is presented today as “factual” insight into the structure of the development of adults, both social-emotional and cognitive. I intend to show that the scientific construct of “adult development” is actually an […]

Gary Hawke As I have been developing the Integral Alive model, it appears that I am spending time feeling into the inquiry of —what does Integral mean. The more I have pursued this question, the more I began to realise that if I want to use the word Integral, then I better understand, not just what it means, but also in […]

Christine McDougall This article has been written after years of working with businesses and leaders within business. The examples of businesses that work well with tension and compression are rare. Most of the businesses that get this right are small and agile. They have unquestioned clarity around the service their business provides and they hold […]

Kirstin McGuire The depth and breadth of unrealized human potential currently lying dormant in our Eco is more than a match for any personal, local, societal, global, economical or ecological problem we face. The full actualization of these potentials through constructing a creative and transformative educational and leadership effort is our opportunity. (McCaslin, 2013, p. […]

“A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool” – William Shakespeare, “As You Like It”, Act 5 scene 1 As we ponder the possibility of a recovery from the recent economic slowdown and other political and economic uncertainties it is easy to think that this century […]

Lexi Neale Author’s Note: The above title is not intended to be demeaning, dear Reader, but more of an inside joke between Russ and I. Russ has twice approached me about an AQAL Cube article, and has twice shied away from what I sent him. His complaint? Too complex! So I have finally relented and […]

John Quinlan Over a period of seven years, John Quinlan and his wife, Fiona, traversed the rivers, valleys and mountains of Papua, New Guinea, visiting innumerable villages on a remote plateau located in the Oro Province. During this time, they generally were considered a familiar and welcome presence, greeted warmly by the region’s farmers and […]

Edward J. Kelly Abstract Despite the intuitive feel of constructive-developmental theory (Kegan, 1980; 1994; McCauley et al., 2006; Torbert, 1987, 1994, 2004), it has had very little impact on the mainstream literature in leadership development. One reason for this maybe a lack of exemplars to tell the developmental story. The findings from this research may […]

Maretha Prinsloo and Paul Barrett Abstract Given the spectrum of consciousness as postulated by various consciousness theorists, cognition, according to Wilber’s All Quadrants All Levels (AQAL) metatheory merely represents a developmental “line” or “stream”, and does not encapsulate the essence or apex of consciousness. However, as proposed in a previous article on consciousness theory (Prinsloo, […]

Introduction In order to understand the role of leadership in promoting happiness, it is necessary to define happiness. A casual survey of people on the street would seem to indicate they know what makes them happy. Often these conversations will result in discussions about having enough money and resources, a nice place to live, closeness […]

Angela H. Pfaffenberger Abstract Abraham Maslow originated the notion of self-actualization over 50 years ago. However, very little research has emerged addressing the question of how individuals can progress to advanced stages of development. Past research has shown that the majority of adults fail to achieve the most advanced stages of personality development and that […]

Alla Ratner Alla Ratner  Introduction After 20 years in a successful leadership career, I experienced a loss of meaning. I felt locked into a dense isolation where going through one more day seemed intolerable. I was not aware that there could be a spiritual malady behind my professional and personal crisis. Spirituality was not a […]

Mark McCaslin and Jason Flora There is an important relationship at work concerning integral leadership and the notion of the leader in a teaching and learning role. Integral leadership positions itself at the intersections of potential and therefore seeks the ability to use multiple approaches, multiple lenses, and to fashion the wide-reaching theoretical aims of […]

Edward J. Kelly Abstract The following is a summary of my developmental research on Warren Buffett. The study concludes that Warren Buffett has gone through seven transformations in leadership and that his character development is largely responsible for his success as a leader. Introduction I first became actively interested in Warren Buffett in 1995 having […]

Eric Storm and Beth Meredith It is common wisdom that leaders today must grapple with increasing amounts of complexity. This seems inevitable given our access to ever more information and our expanding awareness of and the connections between psychological, social, organizational, and technological factors. This is particularly true for integral leaders who are actively developing […]

Transformation of Consciousness and New Reality  Svetlana Maltseva The present article introduces Professor Vasiliy Vasilievich Nalimov, a Russian mathematician and philosopher, whose ideas and concepts, regarding human consciousness, are both exciting and provocative. Nalimov’s profound scientific works showed the world that our society needs to see far beyond our time dimension to change the situation […]

Carol Burbank Abstract: The most direct way of developing the necessary flexibility and health for transformational leadership is through radically embodied presence. This kind of embodiment involves a fundamental reintegration of body, mind and spirit, involves developing evolutionary strengths that allow individual leaders to fully access their inner resources while connecting in the moment-to-moment, negotiated […]

Dorit Netzer Abstract Drawing on humanistic and transpersonal psychologies and phenomenological theories of the imagination, this paper seeks to contribute to the development of theories and practices at the intersection of transpersonal, transformative adult education and integral leadership, particularly by advancing the Metagogy model of teaching and learning, as recently outlined by McCaslin and Scott. […]

Kuldip Reyatt, Stephen Goveia, Kathryn Johnson, and Arthur Jue In this thought piece, key challenges for the global leadership field/industry are highlighted, some of which, are also raised by others – notably, Barbara Kellerman (see endnotes for ILR links). Now is the right time to put forward thoughts about Good Leadership for All, ideas about […]

Paolo Vittozzi “Kung-fu lives in everything we do” says the Master to the pupil, who wants to know why he should put the jacket on and take it off… likewise with me, since I think that: ”leadership lives in everything we do”. The kind of life I’ve lived so far has been permeated by leadership. […]

Lorenzo Santoro Traditionally, Italy has maintained a reputation as a laboratory of new and original political phenomena, being generated in movements such as Risorgimento, Fascism, Togliatti’s Communism, Berlinguer’s Eurocommunism, and Berlusconi’s charismatic media-based power system. These new and original approaches to leadership made Italy a modern and large nation state, a mix of very ancient […]

Pedro Barrajon, L.C. The role that religions play has been acknowledged recently in the fields of culture, politics, economics and the different domains of social life. In the Marxist doctrine, following the severe critic that Feuerbach made in his book The Essence of Christianity, religion was considered as the opium of the people or as […]

Franco Di Maria and Giorgio Falgares Abstract Even though Cosa Nostra is the most powerful criminal organization inthe world, few national and international studies have been carried out on this phenomenon so far. The main reasons are: a) the complexity of the study object. As a matter of fact, Cosa Nostra, in addition to being […]

Adriano Pianesi “The mind grows through exposure to reality.” – W. Bion I grew up and was educated in Rome, Italy. Here are a few flashbacks about my life as a learner in the Italian school system: Elementary School, 1972: Maestra Arena would consider any question from the class as a personal insult and refuse […]

 John Renesch Abraham Maslow’s famous Hierarchy of Needs defines “self-actualization” as a state sought by all human beings once we have satisfied the more basic needs of survival, sexual gratification and belonging. Carl Rogers, a colleague of Maslow’s and one of the founders of humanistic psychology, defines it as people’s tendency to actualize themselves, to […]

Kenton Hyatt and Cheryl De Ciantis Introduction This exploration into leadership is not yet another leadership prescription, offering what should be done. It is an approach that offers a multi-prism lens that allows for a variety of leadership needs and styles, and yet keeps their description at manageable levels. It is descriptive, not prescriptive, and […]

Marc Gafni Part One: Stepping Beyond “Local Means Global” I was looking with my son at Google Earth the other morning. I wanted to show him my old neighborhood in Jerusalem, which I loved. We were able to find the exact location and see it – pretty clearly in front of us. Although I knew […]

Oliver Ngodo Introduction Some people would recall that some time they simply become aware that they have gone through a ‘peak’ experience; they have reached an ecstatic moment – no, much more than just a moment, but a permanent state, resulting in greater clarity and understanding. That’s like when your consciousness expanded – and you […]

Nancy Southern,  Sylvia Gaffney, and Bernice Moore Results of a qualitative study show how leaders experience complexity and how it is changing their understanding of their role and ways of engaging with and supporting others. Transformative learning theory and practice can aid leaders in shifting their meaning schemes and ways of being to enable organizational […]

Nick Ross No, my heart is not asleep. It is awake, wide awake. Not asleep, not dreaming— its eyes are opened wide watching distant signals, listening on the rim of vast silence Antonio Machado Here is my secret. It is very simple. It is only with the heart that one sees clearly. What is essential […]

Michel Saloff-Coste After thirty glorious years crashing in the late 70s on the first oil shock, we had 30 years during which we have sunk deeper and deeper into economic, social and ecological crisis. Economic demography stumbles because we are already on the limits of the planet. We know this, in part, because social inequalities […]

Marilyn Hamilton  Abstract This article explores the qualities of leadership to the “Power of 8”. It offers a definition of leadership that can be recalibrated across a spectrum of complexity. It proposes the integral paradigm as a source for framing, measuring, mapping and tracking leadership across four levels of complexity. The article examines evidence from […]

Warning: The following narrative is psychoactive. It has been designed to disclose what is already here. If it discloses more than that, the reader is encouraged to ignore the excess. The author takes full responsibility for the consequences of this narrative. Nonetheless the reader will find things different after this reading and who is really […]

Marina Danilova This article outlines general provisions, which form the basis of integral coaching, as well as its methodology. It will give you a general idea of changes that an adult undergoes, and the role and content of the help that a coach provides to his client in the course of these changes. The key points are […]

Shawn O’Fallon Abstract Nelson Mandela has become one of the most revered and recognized leaders in history. He is widely recognized for his forgiveness, compassion and humility and their considerable effects on his leadership and the success of anti-apartheid. Yet, surprisingly little deep analysis of Mandela’s leadership exists today. Analysis of Nelson Mandela’s language and […]

Tom Bruno-Magdich Most people in business today understand that organisations must embrace change and creativity in order to stay competitive in this ever shifting, global marketplace. The good news is every company that employs human beings has all the resources they need to help them innovate.  It’s their people stupid! Our experience working with a […]

Otto Laske Abstract In this paper, I outline the graspable existential meaning of human cognitive development. By “existential” I refer not simply to the epistemological positioning of a person to the world as a knower, but the conceptual forces of the social world itself in which this positioning occurs. This world is suffused in language […]

Robert Wayne Johnston It is no mystery we learn, for better or worse, more or less consciously and unconsciously, through our communications with other entities. These include communications with other humans, one’s spirit guide, other animals, our planet, and our cosmos — in every situation we find ourselves “learning in the laboratory of life.” Our […]

Mark L. McCaslin and Karen Wilson Scott Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence. ~Albert Einstein As we observe the mantle of instructor flow from student to student in an open […]

Todd Duncan “A healthy consciousness is like a spider’s web, and you are the spider in the centre. The centre of the web is the present moment. But the meaning of your life depends on those fine threads which stretch away to other times, other places, and the vibrations that come to you along the […]

 Maretha Prinsloo Abstract This paper discusses various theoretical models of the evolution of consciousness as well as critically evaluates and integrates the models into a single organising framework, which is then applied to leadership theory. The construct of consciousness as described by the Spiral Dynamics (SD) model of Clare Graves is linked to the work […]

Bonnita Roy and George Herget This exploration between George and me came about as a result of a conversation between George and Russ Volckmann. Russ could see a special kind of wisdom in George’s stories of the way people and horses can team up to deliver exceptional performance. I have been working with horses and […]

An Essay about Yin, Yang and Thinking Styles Arthur ten Wolde A hopeful trend in these turbulent times is that more and more people are becoming aware of their own motives. They are identifying, on the one hand, what really matters to them like family, justice, and social success and/or the environment. On the other […]

Russ Volckmann Abstract The terms integral, leadership and diversity are explored with the purpose of showing how it is useful to consider them in relation to each other. Such consideration is significantly impacted by how we understand these and other terms that will be introduced. It is essential for us to appreciate how our approaches […]

Wali I. Mondal and Mark R. Peters The Bold Promise of Microcredit: Creating a World without Poverty In is 2006 Nobel Prize acceptance speech, Muhammad Yunus set forth a vision for creating a world without poverty, a world where people would need to go to a museum to experience what poverty was like (Yunus, 1). […]

Patricia von Papstein For M. Abstract: Capital is a great material to work with. It immediately responds to the energy you charge it with. A new league of investment talents now discovers money as a tool for sensual wealth creation. They direct their capital into Eros Impact. Investments with an Eros Impact manifest the satisfaction […]

Marie Legault Abstract This article focuses on the development of conscious and world-centric leaders and businesses and, ultimately, conscious capitalism. In order for leaders to transform society and organizational cultures, they must first develop their own capabilities. The global context of business now requires leaders to think, feel, and act at world-centric stages of development […]

Dorothy Danaher White This article focuses on the issues faced by leaders in the past and how they relate to issues here in the present. The concentration will be leadership, administration, and governance. Through an examination of leadership transitions, initiatives, and issues, the learner hopes to develop a greater appreciation of the complexity of various […]

Mark Walsh Introduction A discussion of leadership must include the body to be integral – we are embodied creatures and this is a core part of our being. Traditional theories of leadership have, however, ignored embodiment, coming from what is a hyper-rational cognitively biased world-view this is not, perhaps, surprising. Encouragingly though, the topic of […]

[Part 1 of this article is: McCaslin, M. & Snow, R. (October, 2010). The human art of leading: A foreshadow to the potentiating movement of leadership studies. Integral Leadership Review, X (5). http://www.archive-ilr.com/archives-2010/2010-10/2010-10-toc.php – Editor] Practicing the Potentiating Art of Deep Understanding Mark McCaslin and Renee Snow Opening Interlude It is difficult to fully speak […]

Riane Eisler All around us are signs that the old economic approaches are not adaptive. Gaps between haves and have-nots are again widening globally, poverty, unemployment, and debt are mounting even in the more affluent regions of our world, and no solutions are in sight for our rapidly accelerating environmental problems. Yet the current economic […]

Lisa Norton Design is focused on solving problems, and as such requires intervention, not just understanding. Whereas scientists describe how the world is, designers suggest how it might be. It follows that design is a central activity for the military profession whenever it allocates resources to solve problems, which is to say design is always […]

Raghu Ananthanarayanan I had a very enlightening conversation with scientist Dr. S. Naranan who works in the area of cosmic energy and particle physics, but also bends his considerable intellect towards linguistics. He is part of a duo – Balasubramanian and Naranan, highly respected researchers who have published several papers on linguistics. The two papers […]

Andrew Munro “Decisions taken today are driven by our visions of tomorrow and based on what we learned yesterday.” – Professor Bruce Lloyd Executive Summary The concept of wisdom is making a comeback (1). Following a period of business folly and fiasco, there is a growing realisation that classic competency frameworks fail to integrate fully […]

Scott Lichtenstein Introduction: We’ve Been Practicing Leadership for Over 6,000 Years; What Else Do We Need to Know? The Pharaohs leading the cadres managing the work teams that built the pyramids understood leadership (Dade 2008). The Imperial Emperors knew how to lead the Chinese civil service that held China together for thousands of years. The […]

Donna Ladkin From the end of the 1990s to the present, a growing shift can be seen in the leadership literature away from predominantly cognitively-based accounts to those which recognise the emotional (Bono & Ilies 2006), affective (Naidoo, Kohari, Lord & DuBois 2010) and aesthetic (Hansen, Ropo & Sauer 2007; Ladkin 2008) aspects of leadership. […]

Nick Ross ”There is nothing in the world that does not have its decisive moment, and the masterpiece of good conduct is to see and seize this moment.” Cardinal de Retz “Psychology must be gained for it is not given and without psychological education we do not understand ourselves and we suffer”. James Hillman 1926-2011 […]

John Tuite Why the Body Matters to Leadership Some twenty plus years ago when I began training as a secondary school teacher, I had a few run-ins with a difficult class or two. There is a particularly sharp anguish that one experiences when a classroom of teenagers disintegrates beneath your hands. But it does compel […]

  Simon Western Introduction Organizations are changing fast, driven by emerging new technologies and globalization that makes our world smaller and more interdependent. Transnational corporations, population increase, new communication technologies, the demise of natural resources and climate change, new social networks and social movements, have all led to social and organizational changes that demand a […]

Maretha Prinsloo Abstract This paper focuses on the assessment of leadership potential in terms of a number of related philosophical, theoretical, and technical considerations. A critical evaluation of current assessment practice is followed by the introduction of alternative assessment methodologies and techniques aimed at measuring consciousness, cognition, and motivation. Practical guidelines for integrated and holistic […]

Luca Simeone and Carlo Ratti SENSEable City Lab (SCL) is a research initiative at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) aimed at investigating and anticipating the ways digital technologies are changing the way people live and their implications at the urban scale (1). The SCL is nested within the City Design and Development group at […]

Marilyn Hamilton Abstract This article explores and seeks to answer the question Where are the Women in the Integral movement? The author utilizes the principles of “Five Deep” exploration from Beck and Spiral Dynamics along with Wilber’s AQAL model to explore circumstances that, she proposes, may have produced a mismatch in stage development between women […]

Alain Gauthier My intention in this article is to explore emerging concepts and forms of integral leadership, pursuing how they can be scaled up to bring humanity – across the planet – onto an evolutionary and sustainable course. After offering some fresh distinctions about leadership, the article calls for a shift to a radically innovative […]

Don Dunoon and Ellen Langer A challenge for those of us who want to exercise leadership is to step beyond the obvious, to discern more broadly and keenly the factors bearing on an issue, to be more receptive to divergent perspectives and novel information, and to be more mindful. To be mindful is not simply […]

Alexandre (Rico) de Faria Abstract This article is about the sustainable and healthy human development along the path of human evolution—the Spiral. It is based on a broader study of the impact of a Roma school on the Roma (gypsy) community (RC) in the town of XY, Romania[1]. Using Spiral Dynamics Integral (SDI), Romanian and […]

  Leida Schuringa 1. Introduction In this article you will find the integral story of the Quality Centre Refugee Women. The Quality centre supports refugee women to discover and develop their talents in Dutch society. The preparation of this initiative started 5 years ago and in November 2007 we got financed by the Orange Foundation […]

Josina van den Acker This article is written in the context of the global need to act sustainably, which according to Smith and Stewart (2010) requires that we open our selves to opportunities to work together, collaborate and see our needs differently. The main part of this article is written as a letter to an […]

  Elizabeth F. Turesky, Kristen S. Cloutier and Marisa F. Turesky Abstract The authors address the dynamic interaction between culture and gendered leadership perceptions. Using Hofstede’s cultural framework of the masculinity/femininity dimension, this study explores the ways fourteen Italian women have achieved and sustained successful leadership positions in Italy and then evaluates how Italy’s dimension […]

Sue L. T. McGregor Transdisciplinarity (TD) is fast becoming a global philosophical movement. This paper is concerned with transdisciplinary axiology, especially with the ongoing conversation aboutwhether or not this particular axiom (pillar) is needed in conjunction with the three other transdisciplinary axioms: epistemology, logic and ontology. After providing an overview of the concepts of axioms […]

Christine McDougall Precession in this article is based on the principle of precession as defined by R. Buckminster Fuller —the effect of bodies in motion on other bodies in motion.  The Sun and the Earth are both bodies in motion. Despite the 180 degree gravitational pull of the in-motion Sun upon the in-motion Earth, precession […]

Massimo Bellotto 1. The Context of Change The so-called cold war between the two super powers which maintained leadership of the most developed countries took place for forty years in an implicit way, due to the mutual deterrence of atomic weapons that was based on the competing accumulation of scientific and technological know-how, on persuasion […]

­­­­(A New View of Organizations & Human Action) Bonnitta Roy and Jean Trudel Part I: Conception Aware The Relevant Situation: The 21st Century’s Double Bind A decade ago, Stuart Kaufmann (2000) made a bold claim for the 21st century mindset, “The universe and the biosphere keep advancing into a persistent adjacent possible” (p 84).  For most […]

Gary Hawke As I have been developing the Integral Alive model, it appears that I am spending time feeling into the inquiry of—what does Integral mean. The more I have pursued this question, the more I began to realise that if I want to use the word Integral, then I better understand, not just what […]

On Potential Repercussions of Mega Sports Events in Russia Eugene Pustoshkin I was deeply emotionally touched—up to tears—when I watched the footage of a dramatic episode that happened on June 22, 2011, where the contemporary sports legend and Brazilian football star Roberto Carlos, age 38, who currently plays at the Russian football club Anzhi and […]

Transdisciplinarity, Learning, and Complexity in Fairsies, Keepsies and Mibs Gaetano R. Lotrecchiano Recently I received an email through the Science-of-Team-Science mass mailer from my colleague Steve Fiore, PhD, at Cognitive Sciences Laboratory at Central Florida University. He brought to our group’s attention an interesting quote from John Lasseter, director and chief creative officer of Pixar […]

How do Integral ARTISTS, Boomers, Gen X and Millennial Generations Impact City Values and Policy Development? Marilyn Hamilton and Cherlynn Beck Abstract The generational wave is a supra-wave of human life patterns that embraces many of the waves normally considered in an Integral human development model. Embracing the waves of consciousness, values and capacity development […]

Tim Takechi At first glance, Molly Freed is no different than any other high school student. She studies hard, earns good grades, pays attention to her teachers, plays soccer and hopes to get into the college of her dreams. But once you get to know her, you will discover she is far from typical. A […]

Commentary on a Presentation on Spiritual Intelligence and Integral Theory given by Cindy Wigglesworth to the London Integral Salon and EnlightenNext, Wednesday 25th May Nicholas Shannon Does it make sense to talk of “Spiritual Intelligence (SQ)”? And if it does, is SQ something that can be measured, and taught? Can we say that SQ is […]

An account of a pilot leadership development program for Aker Solutions. Jonathan Reams Imagine a room full of engineers, all highly skilled in their areas of technical expertise, with a few human resource people thrown into the mix. They have been successful enough to advance along their company’s “leadership pipeline,” yet find that the skills […]

Rosaria (Ria) Hawkins One of the many concepts shaping our view of self, health, leaders, leadership, and organizations is mindfulness. The purpose of this article is to first provide a quick summary of the concept of mindfulness and its transition from the clinical therapy arena into the leadership and popular press. Second, I provide a […]

Michael McDermott and Spike Boydell   ABSTRACT   An intellectual foment has been under way for the last few decades, with the limitations of modernist scientism and similarly mechanistic philosophies being revealed as fraudulent insofar as they make claims to any magisterial authority—in particular, over life and social sciences. The ground is shifting beneath our […]

Synopsis of Integral Leadership Review’s Series on Transdisciplinarity in Higher Education Sue L. T. McGregor and Russ Volckmann During 2010-2011, Russ Volckmann (Editor and publisher of the Integral Leadership Review) and Sue McGregor (Integral Leadership Council member) published six papers in a series about making the transdisciplinary (TD) university a reality. We profiled initiatives in […]

Brian McConnell The Integral Research Center Roanoke, VA           Abstract: Presenting a background of historical context, “Toward a Sustainable Future” offers an overview in the ascendancy of neoliberal/neoconservative viewpoints constituting the world’s dominant socioeconomic ideology today. An AQAL framework is then introduced and subsequently examined as an aid to envisioning and […]

Nicolescu in Romania Sue LT McGregor and Russ Volckmann Thus far we have looked at transdisciplinary programs at particular institutions of higher education in the United States, Mexico, Brazil, Austria and the European Union, and Australia. In this penultimate chapter in this series we take a look, not just at a transdisciplinary PhD program in […]

Wayne Carr, Ph.D. Introduction My intenIion is to bring forth some different perspectives on second tier (see my definition of second tier under the next heading). I will tap into a fountain and share some water with you. I intend to look around and fine some elephants that might be in the room. I want […]

Mark Walsh What is exactly is physical intelligence? What are some of the ways your body can be experienced, employed and developed? How do we make sense of the multitude of embodied practices now available to do this? This paper is intended for those with at least a passing familiarity with Ken Wilber’s integral theory […]

Maureen Metcalf and Belinda Gore This article takes a look at resilience through an integral lens. We will explore how we define it, how we applied it to a client project, our findings, and our analysis. Our objective in writing this article is to contribute to the literature of applied integral theory about leadership development […]

“I don’t have a message; my message is my life.”  ~Gandhi Vernice Solimar   Being the change We live in a time of great transition in which our experiences and concepts of self, society and the universe are continuously dying and transforming; a time in which the most compelling need is visionary leadership that initiates […]

Tom Murray Integral theories of adult development attempt to capture, synthesize, apply, and extend the state of the art from many scholarly threads, shedding new light on our understanding of the developmental process. Yet human development is exceedingly complex and taxes our abilities to understand and model it. Is our shared understanding of development sufficient […]

Camden C. Danielson Do you know your people?  And do you love them? Mother Teresa Address to Indian HR Executives The global environment is increasing the degree of complexity for organizations operating anywhere in the world. With it arises the need for a different kind of inquiry operating within our lives and organizations. The requirement […]

John Jacob Zucker Gardiner Paper presented at the first Working Collaboratively for Sustainability International Conference, Seattle University, Seattle, Washington, April 12, 2009.   Global sustainability – social, economic, and environmental—is best served by an emergent leadership metaphor that serves the triple bottom lines of profits, people, and planet of the 21st century global corporation: transcendent […]

Sustainability through Transdisciplinarity and Integrality: Institute for Sustainable Futures, the University of Technology, Sydney Australia Russ Volckmann and Sue L.T.McGregor We have been exploring “academic” programs in transdisciplinarity for about one year. It may be a mistake to refer to them as “academic,” because one of the features of these programs is that they are […]

Brad McManus & Ron Cacioppe Abstract   Projects are an important management approach to improving organisational effectiveness. This paper describes how project management can contribute to achievement of an organisation’s strategy and sustainable success by adopting a more holistic, ‘integral’ approach to a project and the leadership of people during the stages of a project. […]

John M. Bunzl There has hardly been an epoch in which organisations played a more prominent role than our own. Be they governments, businesses or non-governmental organisations (NGOs), all of them deeply affect our lives and society as a whole. Moreover, at this time of deepening global crisis and change, understanding the systemic ways organisations […]

Sue L. T. McGregor Acknowledgement: Sincere gratitude to Professor Basarab Nicolescu (President of International Center for Transdisciplinary Research, CIRET) for vetting a draft of this paper, and for being such a gracious and patient TD-mentor. This paper is about transdisciplinary (TD) methodology, especially TD ontology. Methodology is a branch of knowledge that deals with the […]

S. Suresh Kumar Abstract Self system models have a great bearing on our personality, perceptions and personal leadership abilities and approaches. The usual models are contingent on subjective systems based on a localized self awareness and sense of the self as bodily consciousness with its limitations. This inevitably reflects on our leadership styles and self […]

Anil Nayar Editors Note: In the early nineties, India went through a liberalization of its economy. The era of government controls and large Public sector investments gave way to an encouragement of private equity and foreign investment. Bharthi Airtel is a spectacular success of this era. The reader will notice how Sunil Mittal has been […]

Raghu Ananthanarayanan A Parable: A young woman had committed suicide. She was the daughter of a respected village elder. It was an open secret that this girl was in love with a boy who belonged to a lower caste, but who was educated and lived in the “city.” He held a good job. The village […]

V. Suresh and Pradip Prabhu The editor’s comments: The Koodam represents one of the most successful applications of second tier thinking that I have come across. The authors of this paper have worked with tribal issues in the hinterland of India. They have had to face police repression on a few occasions. The personal courage […]

Gagandeep Singh Preamble This article takes a close hard look at Organization Design. We asked ourselves, why should we write about Organization Design amidst times when managers all across the world, are facing unnerving dilemmas and painful transitions, as they struggle to respond to a global downturn, under a looming threat of a possible collapse […]

O. B. Ramasubramanian Editors Note:The dawn of Independence in India also saw the breakdown of a dialogue between the believers in the Nehruvian Model of development and the Gandhian. What is visible today is the economic growth of India.  However, with the global crises accelerating, the Gandhian perspectives of development and growth are becoming recognized […]

R. Sridhar Editors Note: This paper narrates the author’s excitement in being able to find a convergence between his Orange Organizational Identity and his yearning to merge his Purple and Blue selves that don’t find expression in the business context. The Indian mind has been both luaded and criticised for being very flexible. What is […]

Manoj Pavitran in collaboration with Arul Dev   Telos is a model of consciousness and its evolutionary journey, based on the pioneering work of Sri Aurobindo1, a philosopher yogi and well known spiritual master of India who articulated an integral perspective nearly a century ago. Telos has in focus the evolutionary transformation of the individual […]

Transdisciplinarity in Higher Education The Path of Arizona State University by Sue McGregor and Russ Volckmann This is the second article in a five-part series about transdisciplinarity (TD) in higher education. In an attempt to profile universities on a journey towards transdisciplinarity, we are starting with Arizona State University (ASU), a major and growing American […]

Four Quadrant Coaching: A Conversation with Myles Downey by Debby Hallett I first came across Myles Downey while I was in coach training, and someone recommended his book, Effective Coaching, Lessons from the Coach’s Coach, as one of the best they had read. Myles often refers to a coachee as a “player,” as in “you […]

Frame Breaking Leadership by Keith Merron The concept of a paradigm is no longer new in organizational parlance. It is, in fact, quite commonplace to talk about paradigms and the importance of shifting paradigms in shaping an organization and keeping it fresh and alive. However, talking about and acting are two different things. Many leaders […]

Integrally-informed Management Development: the Art of the Gentle Nudge by Pierre A. Gauthier Introduction An ongoing challenge for Integral Theorists remains the practical application of Integral Theory in the world around them. The ideas and models they produce and discuss amongst themselves do occasionally translate into integrally-informed policies, programs and real-life development, but often only […]

The Story of Jill– How an Individual Leader Developed into a “Level 5” Leader by Maureen Metcalf & Dena Paluck We continue to see Jim Collins book Good to Great at the top of the business best seller list. This book talks about the importance of “Level 5 Leadership” in organizational transformation from good to […]

Q&A Session with Ken Wilber In his loft in Denver, March 4th, 2010 Questions created among the Spanish Integral Community Interview Transcribed by Raquel Torrent, President of Honor of the Spanish Integral Association Raquel: How do you feel Ken? Talk to us about your health. Ken: Well, you know I have a chronic fatigue syndrome. […]

How Is Our Leadership Serving the Highest Vision of Our Planet? by Mark Gilbert The subject of this article is to review our vision for the future and to see if our actions are in alignment with that vision. This topic has been covered many times and in many ways, but we are going to […]

Integral Business: How to Make a Difference and Make Money While Doing What You Love by Brian Whetten Introduction In working with hundreds of conscious businesses over the past five years, we noticed a curious pattern. The more conscious the business leaders were, and the more committed the organization was to making a difference in […]

Five Spiraling Cycles of Transformational Learning A Systems Map for Integral Self-Managers/Leaders by Robert Wayne Johnston As you probably know much has been written in various and sundry publications about the persistent paucity of effective leaders. My management consulting and business school teaching experience over several decades tells me much of the cause lies in […]

How Money Changes the World An Interview with Author and Integral Economist by Jordan MacLeod ILR: Tell us about your process for writing New Currency. JM: Well, it’s been a work in progress for a few years, but it really wasn’t until the onset of the financial crisis and other geopolitical factors that really provided […]

Higher Education and Bad Practice by José van den Akker Abstract Universities. And What about Miscommunication and Accountability? Universities usually control context and supply the dominant logic. A problem lies in remaining unaware of hidden programmed or indoctrinated thinking that produces predetermined values. Usually accompanied by an emotional impulse to correct or amend, it reinforces […]

Making the Transdisciplinary University a Reality by Sue L.T. McGregor and Russ Volckmann The purpose of this article is to introduce a new series for Integral Leadership Review. One of the many streams of thought that we have been featuring here is transdisciplinary. See the articles by Sue McGregor (2009a) and another by Predrag Cicovaki […]

Some Questions About Europe by Dorothea F. Zimmer Thinking about how best to express the multitude of my thoughts on the topic of the future of Europe in a short article, I frequently step outside into the sunshine to pick the old leaves and blossoms from my plants on the terrace. As often, I am […]

Organization Identity Profiles –Old and New Economy Indian Organization Profiles Through the Graves – SD Lens by Raghu Ananthanarayanan and K.S. Narendran Introduction: The authors had the opportunity to work with tools based on Clare Graves Levels of Existence Framework developed by Ashok Malhotra, an organization consultant based now out of Bengaluru (Bangalore), India. The […]

Climate Change & Values How Different Countries See the Issue by Alan Tonkin Introduction It is perhaps appropriate at this time with the outcome of the Copenhagen Climate Conference to consider the current debate around climate change from a totally different perspective. Allowing for the divergence of opinion between climate change supporters and detractors there […]

Family Owned Business Succession – Building on a Legacy Approach, Case Study, and Results by Maureen Metcalf and Carl Fernyak This article looks at the topic of using integral tools to help a family owned business transition ownership and operation from father to son. The son, Carl, purchased the 91 year old business from his […]

by Zack Smith and Chad Stewart Setting the Context for Leadership: Sustainability and Abundance When Sustainability is Unsustainable There is a lot of buzz about being “green” and acting “sustainably” these days. Unfortunately, a great deal of it seems to be just that: Buzzing. Not to say people are not trying or lack commitment. Many […]

The Future of Strategic Leader Development at the U.S. Army War College Col. Susan R. Myers and Jeff Groh Abstract This case study describes the design and implementation of the resident and distance education programs at the U.S. Army War College that prepares senior military officers and civilians to assume strategic leadership responsibilities. Development of […]

mariana Bozesan Abstract: This paper highlights the major collective and individual threats faced by humanity today and argues that money alone will not provide the desired relief. Instead, it contends that only sustainable solutions that consider all life perspectives and are rooted in higher levels of consciousness can succeed. After introducing Wilber’s Integral Framework as a […]

Theo Dawson and Katie Heikkinen INTRODUCTION In a previous article (Stein and Heikkinen, 2008), we described how the Lectical Assessment System (LAS) and other aspects of developmental maieutics (Dawson & Stein, 2008) relate to the integral model. Here, we describe how the LAS can be used to reveal within-level differences between persons—differences that have important […]

Elza S. Maalouf My first year of Law School in Lebanon, was a year to remember. I recall the heated political discussions I had with Shia students and professors alike over many long hours ranging from discussing the merits of Marxism to laws on women’s rights in Lebanon and the role religion plays in law. […]

Yene Assegid Vision is part of the attributes we associate with great leaders and one of the key faculties of great leadership. It refers to the leader’s capacity to see ahead and envision what the future could potentially hold or what opportunities lay ahead and defines the reality where the leader wants to take her […]

Otto Laske Abstract I explore the concepts of “change” and “crisis” in order to put issues important in the current recession into perspective from the point of view of Western dialecticism, including what we know empirically about adult cognitive development. Specifically, I detail the diffraction of dialectic into three moments and show that they need […]

An audio (mp3) interview with this author is available by sending an email to russ@integralleadershipreview.com) Background – A Personal Note The “Crisis” essay which follows, is the text version of an invited presentation delivered, in Switzerland, earlier this spring, at a meeting called to discuss the world financial crisis. The venue, the Cwarel Isaf Forum at […]

We are witnessing, I am convinced, the first stages of a new and extremely promising revolution. This movement promotes a new approach to human knowledge—ranging from and including natural sciences, social sciences and humanities—and, indeed, a new approach to humanity in general. The temporary name of this revolution is “transdisciplinarity,” and one of its most […]

Kristoffer E. Nelson As I’ve discussed recently in my blog Integral Business, the future of sustainable, profitable and socially responsible companies rest well beyond what is now commonly referred to as “triple bottom line” organizations. Indeed an evolutionary step, achieving a triple bottom line status is a great challenge that inspires great merit—it’s a huge accomplishment. […]

Leadership development is going nowhere fast is the chief finding of Development Dimensions International (DDI) 2008/2009 Global Leadership Forecast where 1493 HR professionals and 12,208 international leaders from 76 countries were interviewed. The two most cited reasons for why leaders fail were leadership and interpersonal skills 19% and strategic visionary skills 19%. What makes this […]

In The Evolutionary Outrider: The Impact of the Human Agent on Evolution, in 1998 I introduced the concept of the evolutionary outrider. The term was meant to capture the situation of those who boldly scout on ahead of us to explore potentially revolutionary as well as evolutionary prospects for a better future. These evolutionary outriders, I […]

“Your values become your destiny.” Mahatma Gandhi The 2009 State of the World Forum is being held in Washington, D.C. early next year (2010). This momentous event is using an integral framework to bring together the different aspects of how we evaluate information and make decisions. The website states that these aspects fall into four […]

Integral Music: Evolution in Action Jessica Roemischer Introduction Music is arguably a more essential means of human expression than language. Over the course of history music has evolved to communicate an increasingly wide spectrum of experience: isolation, fear of death, dreams of paradise, religious devotion, unrequited love, spiritual yearning, romantic fulfillment, national pride, mystical union, […]

Weatherhead School of Management professor, Fred Collopy, penned a provocative piece in June 2009’s Fast Companyblog; an article that deserves a wider hearing and response. In today’s fragmentation of venues for committed discourse, I see a fascinating paradox of too many places (blogs) chasing too few great ideas (original thinking, not just the cut-and-paste of most […]

Said E. Dawlabani Introduction The current global economic crisis has humbled the field of economics as a science for its systemic failure to foresee the global danger signs. Even the best and the brightest in President Obama’s elite and highly credentialed team of experts are quickly finding that the largest economic stimulus in history will […]

Note: This interview begins with music by Cal Tjader. This file has been removed from the server. We will be happy to email it to you. Please send a request to 

For some years now it seems to have been a well known truth that Einstein’s saying “we can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them” is quite relevant when talking about how we create and develop organizations and leaders that have the capacity to navigate the weathers […]

Scott Pochron In a recent article in the Integral Leadership Review, Mark Edwards (2009) suggested that Integral Leadership may be viewed from three holarchical lenses: developmental, ecological, and governance. The following paper proposes Elliott Jaques’s theory of Requisite Organization (RO) as a meta-theoretical framework for integrating these three lenses. The implications of RO as an integrative […]

I run a training and coaching company that works with stress management, leadership and team building amongst other things. What we’ve discovered is that training that isn’t integral doesn’t work very well as something is left out. I like integral because it gets the job done and allows you to be a human being doing it. I […]

Understanding How Teams Work One of the most interesting mental models I have come across in recent times is Prasad Kaipa’s use of the tetrahedron. I have been playing with it. Our consulting group took the exploration of our own work processes based on the paper “Application of Pyramid Building in Organisations: Aligning Strategy, Process […]

Integral leaders can appreciate that the sheer magnitude and scale of poverty impacts the whole of humanity; it is planetary in nature. Xuereb astutely observes that a failure in one corner of the world is a failure everywhere; with poverty, no one wins. Because people are all connected, “your poverty is my poverty, if not […]

It is possible to evolve top-teams for the twenty-first century, even in today’s turbulent and challenging times. Achieving high performance at the most senior executive level of company divisions and business units requires a team to engage in an alignment process that takes time, focus and personal commitment. The task is not an onerous one, […]

This article, primarily using the stages of development component of Ken Wilber’s Integral framework, follows the emerging group dynamics models that are coming apparent in current post-postmodern environments and how one such model was used at Integral Life in the IT Development efforts. Introduction Software development is one of the most challenging and evolving areas […]

Listen to Michael Jones’ piano as you read this article ~ we will be happy to email it to you. Please send a request to 

For Victoria and Julian Introduction As conscious leaders, we feel responsible for the life quality on this planet. We invent and design products and services that are sustainable and provide deep support, i.e., they are tools for life assistance. We initiate social responsibility projects. We fund creative industries. We invest in water protection, healthcare prevention […]

This article looks at the question: “What is the developmental impact of a client who engages in individual coaching and consulting where the focus is integral in nature and the coach is functioning at least one full developmental level above the client?” In this study, the coaching and consulting support focused primarily on leadership development […]

Introduction Over the past few years I’ve been engaged in an on-the-job action research project to develop an Integrally informed change management business, based in Melbourne, Australia. Like many change agents, sometimes it’s been hard for me to explain exactly what I do. That just seems to be part of the challenge when you attempt […]

Abstract While much is known about how biological evolution has shaped human physical traits, less is known about why human mental traits evolved. It remains an ongoing puzzle how humans could have evolved the traits that integral leaders exhibit, such as interpersonal warmth, compassion and wisdom. This paper reviews existing theories for why these human […]

INTRODUCTION: A VISION FOR INTEGRAL SUSTAINABILITY “As long as human beings are regarded as “bad,” zero (waste) is a good goal. But to be less bad is to accept things as they are, to believe that poorly designed, dishonourable, destructive systems are the best humans can do. This is the ultimate failure of the “be […]

The present context of leadership of Australasia is situated in increasingly complex, uncertain and dynamic business environments with multiple, demanding realities, value systems and growing pressures, particularly facing the environmental predicament and recent economic downturn and financial crisis. Australasia, the world south of Asia (“austral” being Latin for “southern”) particularly New Zealand, and Australia, with […]

This article looks at the issue of leadership within three multilevel contexts. The first context relates to the developmental context of leadership as a process of ongoing growth through various stages. This context focuses on things such as values, cognitive capacities, interpersonal skills and all those abilities that mark off the requirements of effective and […]

If you analyse the way people use the word ‘spiritual’ [leadership] – both scholars and lay people alike – you will find at least 4 major meanings given to that word …My point is simply that all 4 of those are valid meanings of the word ‘spiritual’, but people usually mush them all together in […]

The state of the world is screaming for leadership! Global events of the past few years make it painfully evident we humans are at a major crossroads. We all know the list of challenges and crises awaiting future generations so there’s no need for me to cover them here. Questions looming before us include: Do […]

In every direction we look, we are reminded that we have pressing problems to solve as the pioneers of the twenty-first century. The urgency is sounding with a constant and quickening drumbeat. What we know for sure is that bombs and bluster and military might will not bring the solutions we need. As we clamor […]

Executive summary: This paper is about the use we make of developmental metrics and models in the Integral Community. Motivated by broad concerns about growing markets for psychological technologies I propose the need for discourse about quality control parameters, focusing on the construction and deployment of developmental assessment systems. When it comes to developmental metrics and […]

Ken Bloody Wilber Integral theory irritates the hell out of me because I didn’t find it sooner and I had to make up a sketchy version of it myself. This article isn’t about all the great ways I use the Integral map now, but how I learnt what it was the hard way, out there […]

Among the styles of guiding or directing people since the existence of humankind—and no matter whether we talk of political, academic or business leadership styles—we may find a very simple division or classification: Hard and Soft Leadership. I want to share in this space the journey of my own life, having in mind these two […]

He is quick, thinking in clear images; I am slow, thinking in broken images. He becomes dull, trusting to his clear images; I become sharp, mistrusting my broken images, Trusting his images, he assumes their relevance; Mistrusting my images, I question their relevance. Assuming their relevance, he assumes the fact, Questioning their relevance, I question […]

Only those who continue to change remain my kin. ~J. W. Goethe Sunil Ahuja, Scottsdale, AZ, USA; Jon Ebersole, Affoltern am Albis, Switzerland; Otto Laske, Medford, MA, USA; Pia Neiwert, Berlin, Germany; Mirna Perez, Mexico City, Mexico; Ron Stewart, Portland, OR, USA. Copyright © Laske and Associates LLC Abstract This paper discusses a new approach […]

Introduction The objective is simple: ‘Better decision-makin’. The only issue is that there are so many different views over what we mean by ‘better’. At the core of all decision-making is the need to balance Power with Responsibility, as the vehicle for resolving the ‘better’ question. This article explores why that is so difficult? It […]

Integrative leadership is an emerging leadership approach that fosters collective action across many types of boundaries in order to achieve the common good. It brings together leadership concepts and practice rooted in five major sectors of society—business, government, nonprofits, media, and community. It focuses on leadership development at all levels, from individual to global. This […]

We are faced with a growing list of models related to leadership and living systems change. Too often these models are pitted against each other in our conversations and we fail to drawn on their collective potential. I offer here an essay that can be used to frame our ability explore the conditions of change […]

Over the past year I received similar introductions to five bright executives in different organizations. Before each coaching assignment began, I was cautioned, “(S)he’s very hard-nosed. Doesn’t like touchy-feely. Focus on business issues. No soft stuff.” In each situation, I realized that this advice was both helpful and limited. On the one hand, I interpreted […]

Is there a case to understand leadership in a developing nation differently from Leadership in a developed economy? I do not suggest that I know the answer by I do realize that an enquiry into this question will be worthwhile. By comparing my experience of working with a few organizations in India, I am hoping […]

Thinking of going integral? Sure, there’s all this theory, but are you actually, concretely evolving? Are you walking your talk? You may be entertaining limiting beliefs that form self-imposed, but invisible, unexamined barriers to becoming an integral human being. If you are one of those who still think you are flawed, incomplete, and unsatisfied by […]

“…We can address poverty, climate change, and environmental destruction at a very modest cost today with huge benefits for shared and sustainable prosperity and peace in the future…” Al Gore: Winner of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize and Former Vice President of the United States “We have reached the beginning of the twenty-first century with […]

in Conversation with Robb Smith–CEO Integral Institute, Chairman & CEO Integral Life Just over a year ago I was given the opportunity to interview Robb Smith, the newly appointed Chief Executive of the Integral Institute. When I heard on the grapevine that Robb was making a flying visit to New York City, I thought that […]

Abstract The University of Minnesota created a new all-university, interdisciplinary Center for Integrative Leadership in the summer of 2006. Co-sponsored by the Carlson School of Management and the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, the center defined integrative leadership as “fostering collective action across boundaries to advance the common good.” During the 2006-7 academic […]

Abstract. This paper summarizes the key findings, interpretations and questions that result from a nine-month exploratory study of the emerging field of ‘generative change agent development’ (GCAD). The study was based on interviews with observers of the field and program directors on five continents, as well as on analyses of websites, articles, and books. It […]

In our fast changing environment, many of us are asking questions about how to implement sustainable change. Possible solutions are delivered in the many models and stories comprising numerous business books. However, finding the right one for you can be an exhausting and expensive task. To help you find the best solution, I’ve used my […]

A growing awareness that humankind is facing unprecedented challenges that are is making many of us uneasy. Our dis-ease stems from increasing awareness that humanity’s bill for our impact on the health of the planet is now coming due. How we choose to proceed may determine whether we are privileged to continue to adapt physically, psychically and […]

Maureen Metcalf We have been hearing about “Level 5 Leadership” since Jim Collins’ book Good to Great became popular over 5 years ago. This book made the term “Level 5” a common phrase in business circles. While the term is often used, it is not often understood. Even worse, many people believe they understand what it is […]

When you know what Integrative Leadership is all about, and commit to the Integrative Leadership path, you will find that illustrations of it can be found in all parts of your life. It nerve ceases to amaze me how it continues to enrich my life, and helps me learn about myself as a leader—and I […]

 Peggy Holman and Tom Atlee A small but rapidly-growing number of people are taking the viewpoint that humanity has the potential to become “conscious evolution”. They believe that we are evolution becoming conscious of itself. These people constitute a science-based spiritual movement which has so far focused on (a) reframing major religions through the eyes […]

This article compares the long-term results of leadership case studies from four countries (Brazil, England, Denmark, USA). The long-term results are interpreted through the Integral lens, and the leaders compared against 2nd Tier values. Reference will be made to the Spiral Dynamics Stage perspectives and memes: Behaviour Type yellow: Tolerance of ambiguities, knowledge of assumptions. […]

The identity of the company unit (in the Netherlands) and individuals has been changed in order to honor commitments to anonymity and confidentiality. We anticipate, perhaps in a follow up article in Integral Leadership Review, to be able to provide more information. This story is about the transformation of a business unit at Company X and […]

Last February—while a new Dutch government was in the making—probably one of the first attempts for integral policy making in the 21st century started to see the light of day. Under the guidance of Herman Wijffels, who is Executive Director at the World Bank and was appointed to this assignment by the Dutch Queen, three […]

The challenge for leadership development is to safeguard both talent development and economic growth by: Changing work patterns and the relationship between learning, creating and producing; Steering in equal measure towards structural, cultural and personal resilience; and Using the natural ability of people that comes from their inner motivation. “The Dutch indicate that their country […]

The Confusion of Tongues by Gustav Doré (1865) Leida Schuringa 1. Introduction The Netherlands has a traditional interest in the participation of civilians, and even more is being expected from this approach as an answer to societal problems and issues since the turn of the 21st century. Including people in society is one of the main objectives […]

So much of my own experience of myself is that of intellectual epiphany, not necessarily always correct, but often self-satisfying. I feel like a 10-year-old, or a teenager – certain of my own absolute truth and intelligence with an ego-centered disregard for the wisdom of others in the face of my own. (Participant in the […]

Is Sex Necessary?—James Thurber Dedicated to the James McGregor Burns Academy of Leadership The following essay considers useful wisdom and knowledge for the practice, development, and study of leadership. Based on a conviction of the relevance of emergent science and classical humanities as well as ancient teachings, this meditation appreciates Integral Leadership theory as a […]

Introduction I have always been interested in the intangible, even ineffable aspects of life. This interest has guided a number of areas in my life, including my inquiries into leadership. I have sought to understand leadership from a view that focuses on the sense of space that some people are able to create and maintain, […]

Introduction: A 360° Profile to Develop Integral Leadership “There is clear evidence of a radical paradigm shift in the practice of management development—from the dominant emphasis on the superficial level of behavioural skills to the deeper and more powerful level of developing consciousness.” >H. Harung, D. Heaton and C. Alexander The development of leadership skills […]

In leadership forums, like the Integral Leadership Review, discussions about how leadership develops are a core topic. There are the ongoing debates about born leaders vs. trained leaders, environment vs. hereditary. Each side supports their opinion with valid observations, good research and persuasive discussions. And the reality of the matter is there are leaders who fit […]

Holding the Question Six years ago, two colleagues and I launched Ternary Software to help other organizations bring software to market using highly effective “lean” processes. Although the business vision we pursued was common enough, we launched the company with an uncommon question. Our prior experience in modern organizations was profoundly unfulfilling and we had a deep […]

On Thursday, April 26, 2007, SeattleIntegral, the largest Integral Salon in Seattle, hosted a special Ken Wilber Meetup with guest Robb Smith, recently named Chief Executive Officer of Integral Institute. As a special treat, we also had the pleasure of participating in a conference call with Ken Wilber (lasting almost an hour-and-a-half!). As many of […]

Imagine you have a voice in your organization and people listen to it. You feel you belong to something larger than yourself, yet in order to be part of this larger whole, you don’t have to give up who you are to enjoy the benefits of membership. Imagine you can take action, and even if […]

  ‘Products are made in the factory, but brands are created in the mind.’ – Walter Landor Business Week’s latest ranking of the world’s top 100 brands attests to the staggering value now being attributed to these rather intangible and nebulous assets. From the bottom of the list, where Levi’s (#100) weighs in at $2.7 […]

Throughout human history, people have made decisions on a daily basis. The decisions they make reflect both the information they have and the choices they perceive. At both personal and group levels, better information and more choices generally lead to better decisions. So the question becomes: how can we get better information and more choices? […]

Using his ground breaking experience in South Africa and his practical knowledge in dealing with the different mindsets in cultures, Dr. Don Beck offered a fresh start to the Palestinians and they responded with an overwhelming enthusiasm on our third trip to the region. Many of our contacts told me that Dr. Beck’s work in […]

Why a Meta-Perspective? Any attempt at developing a comprehensive or general theory of leadership must deal with a wide variety of factors, contexts, variables, and conditions. Development of more limited theories should include an understanding of the place such theories take in a broader context. Further, efforts at developing and implementing research programs on leadership […]

A Summary of “The Psychology of Worldviews” Mark Koltko-Rivera Review of General Psychology, 2004, 8(1), pp. 3-58 In our approaches to exploring the multi-faceted aspects of the subject of leadership, an important developmental concept is that of worldview. This paper seeks to introduce a cogent exploration of this important topic and recommend key questions related to […]

ABSTRACT This article summarizes the life of Marsilio Ficino, a philosopher, priest and scholar, and his profound influence on the Renaissance. The major events and achievements of Ficino’s work are described along with his physical characteristics, personality and life style. Marsilio Ficino translated the major works of Plato and other ancient philosophers and convinced the […]

Leadership needs to be reframed for a digital, postmodern age. The world is losing its static and hierarchical character. Life is now more dynamic, chaotic; final authorities have vanished. Leadership used to be hierarchical, associated with the power to dominate a group. This is biologically primitive because it occurs throughout much of the higher animal […]

Never before have coaches been faced with such a wide-open field of conversations directly relevant to the effectiveness of leaders and the stakeholders they serve. As the business world’s center of gravity moves from a traditional financial focus to one that includes environmental and social stewardship, leadership coaches now are able to scale curiosity and […]

La noción de una persona ungida por los dioses que tiene capacidad para arrastrar a las masas hacia donde desea, es un concepto arraigado como mito entre la mayoría de la población con el que todo estudioso del Liderazgo se encuentra una y otra vez. Por más que esté muy extendida, es una idea falsa. […]

I recently had the opportunity to attend Integral Sustainability 2006 in Westminster, Colorado. I-S 2006 was an integral tour-de-force hosted by world-class instructors and attended by both seasoned integral practitioners and others just incorporating the framework into their lives and offerings. Participants were presented with leading edge academic syntheses, case studies and direct demonstrations. We […]

The recent discovery of bones at Ethiopia’s Lake Omo indicates that our species is approximately two hundred thousand years old. That observation suggests that 10,000 generations of anatomically modern humans have roamed the planet. During this span of time humanity has undergone six discernable Waves of Emergence with a seventh underway. Historically this process unfolded at a […]

Leadership and leadership development is one of the most interesting issues in communities and organizations today. Writing and thinking about leadership in general and Integral Leadership in particular has been growing all over the world. The successes of the International Leadership Association and the Integral Leadership Revieware examples of the growing interest in the subject in […]

The challenge for leaders everywhere is to develop the knowledge and skills to manage the complexity of issues that dominate everyday life. Teaching leadership involves more than skill building and professional development. The teaching of leadership is a challenge that requires the kind of internal re-structuring which comes only from struggling through fundamental issues of […]

Introduction Trustee Leadership. Total Leadership. Assigned Leadership. Connective Leadership. Balanced Leadership. Muscular Leadership. Toxic Leadership. Fusion Leadership. Complexity Leadership. Character Based Leadership. Emergent Leadership. Directive Leadership. Participative Leadership. Ethical Leadership. Principled Leadership. Team Leadership. Achievement Oriented Leadership. Supportive Leadership. Charismatic Leadership. Wholehearted Leadership. Level 5 Leadership. Authentic Leadership. Leadership Development. Leadership Training. Executive Development. Team […]

Herb Koplowitz This paper has two purposes. First, it is an exploration and explanation of leadership as it is understood within Requisite Organization (Jaques 1996). RO (Requisite Organization) is a total systems approach to designing, staffing and managing the workplace. Most people who work in organization design or organization development have not heard of it […]

Introduction In a general sense leaders “lead, inspire, and/or organize” people to form beliefs or take actions and theories of leadership cover a wide range of concerns, including management, organizational transformation, character development and psycho-social motivation. For this article I take a particular meaning or slice within the numerous goals and skill sets entailed by […]

By Max Klau, Ed.D., Senior Researcher for Leadership and Evaluation. City Year, Inc. Contact Information: 10 Craigie St. Apt. 5, Somerville, MA 02143 maxklau@juno.com Phone: (617) 413-6316 Abstract What is the connection between individual development and macro-level social system change?  This article presents an answer to this question by integrating the fields of developmental psychology and […]

Abstract One way or another, we are all both leaders and followers. The value of an integral understanding of leaders and followers seems to have become heightened commensurate with a dramatic increase in the uncertainty and complexity involved in doing business throughout the world, especially since 9/11. To complicate matters further and create even more […]

The life conditions and problems we face as a species, as countries, as organizations and as individuals demand increasing complex/elegant solutions. The type of mature leader who can respond to such situations is a “Tier 2” leader—embodying an advanced stage of personal development. These high levels of adult development are inseparably linked to spiritual intelligence. […]

Summary One of the defining hallmarks of “second stage” integral thinking is the ability to move beyond seeing our current developmental stage as the “one true stage” that “should” be used by everyone. Yet the process through which myself and many others have embraced integral theory is much like a religious conversion experience. In my […]

Abou Nidal, our East Jerusalem Arab driver, is a big sturdy man who promised to take us anywhere in the Palestinian Territories. “These are our people. Safety is not an issue,” he proudly said. Well, not quite… On May 20th Dr. Don Beck, a geopolitical consultant and co-founder of Spiral Dynamics integral, and I finished a […]

“There will be twenty seven of us seated around a long U-shaped table. One of the walls consists of a series of large square glass windows overlooking the silky blue Mediterranean rolling onto the sandy shore.” I was describing to Don Beck the room where the first-ever three-day Spiral Dynamics Level 1 training in Israel […]

It has been almost ten years since Chris Newham, Prasad Kaipa and I had our first conversations about integral theory and Integral Leadership. Influenced by Howard Gardner’s work on multiple intelligences and others’ work on emotional intelligence we turned to Ken Wilber’s A Brief History of Everything, No Boundary and Sex, Ecology and Spirituality for concepts and models that would […]

A few years ago, I was invited to work with Hodgson Sealants Ltd, a Yorkshire-based family firm. They were a leading manufacturer of sealants and Europe’s single biggest supplier of putty. They were beginning to penetrate North Africa and other markets beyond the European continent. For the previous 30-plus years, the company had been run […]

Leadership involves inspiring people and organizations to develop the capacity to create the futures they desire. This often means leaders are called upon to stimulate significant changes in human systems, which invariably require changes in individual behaviors. For such changes to be sustainable, individuals must examine the meaning that gives rise to their behaviors and […]

Introducing Instrumentation to Strengthen the Integral Approach for Use in Organizations Otto Laske Interdevelopmental Institute (IDM) Center for Executive and Organizational Growth (CEOG) Medford, MA 02155, USA www.interdevelopmentals.org Copyright © Otto Laske 2006 For Russ who provoked these thoughts. Abstract The goal of this paper is to show that and how the effectiveness of the […]

I. Introduction Alexander the Great is again at the center of attention, with Oliver Stone’s recently released blockbuster film. Leaving aside our judgment of the film, Alexander himself is worthy of our serious attention for his reshaping of civilization on three continents before his death at 32 and because his remarkably accelerated and many-sided development […]

NB: This is a revision and integration of interrelated sets of notes that have appeared over recent months in Michel Bauwens’Pluralities/Integration online newsletter [ michelsub2003@yahoo.com] The Guru Phenomenon The traditional oriental guru represents a form of spiritual leadership in which so-called advanced spiritual states of being are transmitted from guru to disciple. This requires the disciple […]

So what is all of this about scenarios? For those who are tracking this series of articles the question of what has this got to do with Integral Leadership must have occurred by now. Well, I think it has a lot to do with how the individual develops and prepares for leadership roles. This involves […]

At this critical evolutionary moment in Earth’s history, as the integral wave begins to coalesce, “boots on the ground” global initiatives for Integral Leadership development thankfully are emerging. One such initiative is Integral Africa, at this very moment self-organizing against the fearsome odds for which Africa is renowned. Yene Assegid, a native of Ethiopia and […]

Background The need for leadership development to enhance an effective, coordinated response to HIV/AIDS and related issues has been gathering momentum over the past several years in many developing nations. Throughout the world, HIV/AIDS has rapidly increased the complexity of living within and managing any system, anywhere. The capacity and leadership required to respond to […]

This short article is offered as a tribute to Joseph Rost. It then seeks to link the emerging notions of integral theory with Rost’s earlier and independent work (1991, 1993), work that has been some of the most influential in shaping higher education’s focus on leadership over the last decade. The area of integral theory […]

Since the readership of the Integral Leadership Review constitutes a diverse international group, a few words about this article may be helpful. The United States Military Academy (West Point) is where career officers are educated and trained for the United States Army. In addition to providing military leadership, the graduates of West Point, upon leaving their military […]

Paper presented under the title, “The Evolution of Human Striving,” at the 2005 Conference of the Society for Research in Adult Development, Atlanta, Georgia, April 6-7, 2005. Disclaimer from Prince 1999: “I was dreaming when I wrote this, so forgive me if it goes astray…” This presentation is designed to disquiet current thinking and augment […]

This is the second in a short series of articles that recommends the use of scenarios in leadership development. Further, it suggests that an integral approach to learning from scenarios adds a level of richness that better prepares potential leaders for future events. That is the purpose of leadership development and of the use of […]

In the material to follow I believe we have an example of the analysis that is still so underdeveloped of the lower quadrants of the integral model. While the focus is not leadership, per se, it is certainly about the cultures and systems in which leadership emerges. The immediate challenge it presents, from my point […]

In this series of articles I have been exploring the use of scenarios for leadership development somewhat abstractly. In the next few issues I hope to examine this approach with more attention to method and process. This article begins an outline of the process or approach that one would use with clients to develop such […]

In the last two issues of Integral Leadership Review I have been writing about the use of scenarios and leadership development. Here I will develop this idea further with particular attention to the idea of lines of development. I will also link this exploration to the interview with James O’Toole in this issue of  Integral Leadership Review. […]

We are used to role-plays in leadership development. They are often useful methods for individuals to observe group dynamics and their own behavior in relation to that of others. What could be more full of potential for an integral perspective than that? I would like to suggest that scenario explorations offer even more potential. In […]

Think about the methods we have for developing leaders: education, training, OJT, mentoring, coaching, assessment centers, focus on leader competencies, developing a leadership pipeline, etc. One that hasn’t received much attention is the use of scenarios. Training programs use simulations and experiential learning activities, usually focused on an organizational or behavioral issue of some sort: […]

The reality of Integral Leadership has been exemplified by leaders such as Nelson Mandela, the Dalai Lama, Eleanor Roosevelt, Martin Luther King, Rachel Carson or Mohandas Gandhi. Mother Teresa is another example on which this article is based. These leaders are perceived today not only as some of the most ethical of the 20 th […]

Have you ever had a Tsunami? No, I don’t mean: “A tsunami (pronounced tsoo-nah-mee) is a wave train, or series of waves, generated in a body of water by an impulsive disturbance that vertically displaces the water column. Earthquakes, landslides, volcanic eruptions, explosions, and even the impact of cosmic bodies, such as meteorites, can generate tsunamis. Tsunamis […]

Every year my daughter-in-law gives me a Zen Calendar for my desk. I love these calendars for the daily messages that they bring to me, even those that seem a little obscure. After all, they test one’s wits and often stimulate some new synaptic connections. On Sunday, March 28, 2004 the message was from Hakuin, […]

I was asked recently how I was applying my thinking about Integral Leadership in my coaching with executives and others. Part of my response included the observation that I rarely talk about integral or the idea of Integral Leadership. Rather, I use language that is more connected to the culture I am working in. And […]

I was asked recently how I was applying my thinking about Integral Leadership in my coaching with executives and others. Part of my response included the observation that I rarely talk about integral or the idea of Integral Leadership. Rather, I use language that is more connected to the culture I am working in. And […]

I am departing from my habit of writing a short article related to Integral Leadership to share with you the unpublished Afterword from Fons Trompenaars and Charles Hampden-Turner’s recent book, 21 Leaders for the 21st Century. It seems the publisher elected to reduce the book by two pages and these are the pages that were eliminated. […]

Leo Burke’s Integral Leadership program at the University of Notre Dame is built around some key integral concepts: quadrants (personal meaning, individual behavior, culture and shared values, and systems and processes), lines (cognitive, emotional, interpersonal, physical, moral and spiritual), and or levels of development. Generally, these are consistent with the approach being explored in this […]

In an earlier edition of Integral Leadership Review (Volume 11, No. 3 – March, 2002), I discussed the notion of attunement, the dynamics of the relationship between the individual leader’s values, beliefs, assumptions and intentions in relation to those held by the collective, that is, within the culture. Since that time interesting work has been done […]

In a report on research about leadership, the authors defined their study as “meaning making in a community of practice.” [Ospina, Sonia et al, “Co-producing Knowledge: Practitioners and Scholars Working Together to Understand Leadership,” Building Leadership Bridges 2002, Cherrey and Matusak, eds., International Leadership Association.] They went on to write, “Leadership is perceived as a […]

As leaders, we are frequently looking for models, methods and perspectives that give us a better handle on the challenges we face. We have a myriad of voices clamoring for our attention, urging this behavior or holding up this standard. We seek the wisdom that helps us choose. Or do we? Often we are too […]

As leaders, we are frequently looking for models, methods and perspectives that give us a better handle on the challenges we face. We have a myriad of voices clamoring for our attention, urging this behavior or holding up this standard. We seek the wisdom that helps us choose. Or do we? Often we are too […]

Our efforts to describe, define and develop leadership in business and other organizations have pretty much focused on the individual as leader. Only in rare cases has leadership been considered a collective phenomenon as well. Consequently, much of the literature on leadership has resulted in a collection of stories, models and guidelines for individual effectiveness. […]

If you have been following this series of articles, you know that I have laid out an Integral Leadership model – of sorts. The “of sorts” is about the fact that it is one potential way of thinking about Integral Leadership. It is an approach that looks at leadership from the point of view of […]

Engagement is the process of leadership in which the individual leader and collective leadership interact to achieve goals and build their leadership effectiveness. In engagement we can find the relationship between the individual acts of leaders and the collective acts of leadership in the organization and business. This is the realm of behavior. For some […]

In the last issue I presented the notion of attunement as a process in which an individual executive leader attended to the relationship between their own values, beliefs and assumptions and those of other executive leaders. This discussion could equally apply to the relationship between a CEO and the rest of the company, a team […]

In the last issue we explored the idea of self-management, particularly, management of the relationship between intention and behavior. This encompasses how one’s espoused theories with values, beliefs and assumptions relate to the actions one takes. How, for example, does a leader’s values relate to how s/he manages action in relation to peers, subordinates and other stakeholders. […]

The articles offered on Integral Leadership to this point have been focused on one of four sets (individual or collective, internal or external) in four levels of leadership: Getting individual leaders onto the same field. (Commitment to shared purpose.) Assuring effective use of leadership resources. (Competence in leading.) Appropriate teamwork. (Innovative players on a team […]

It is interesting to me how things seem to come together for this publication. In the last issue I wrote about the leader as entrepreneur in relationships with stakeholders. Fundamentally this means initiating creative acts with stakeholders in the face of change and challenges. The summary article (below) presents one leader’s view of how to do this. […]

It is an error to consider entrepreneurship as a realm to be left to the start-up of new business entities. It certainly is that. And, as Pinchot recognized a couple of decades ago in his book, Intrapreneuring, the quality of entrepreneurship is important inside existing businesses. 3-M is well known for keeping the entrepreneurial spirit […]

I’ve always wanted to be an iconoclast. I mean, an effective iconoclast: someone who can powerfully and successfully challenge our conventional thinking, our conventional wisdom. Perhaps that is why the subject of leadership interests me so much. Leaders cannot afford not to be iconoclasts of sorts. They need to continually challenge the conventional wisdom in […]

In the prior issue I described teamwork among leaders as inspired collaboration. Note that teamwork rests upon a foundation of organization and purpose, all dedicated to achieving evolving business objectives. This perspective is an example of how an integral approach allows us to shift from thinking about either/or (hierarchy or teamwork, for example) to both/and (leading and […]

The quote from Kevin Sharer, CEO of Amgen, the world’s largest biotech company, serves two purposes in support of the perspective, map and coaching approach I am laying out in these e-journals. First, it underscores the combined individual and collective perspective that is essential to assuring effective executive leadership in today’s business world. Second, it […]

This is the fifth in a series of articles on elements of Integral Leadership. A Leadership Opportunity: An Integral Approach is premised on the idea that heroic ideas of leadership are no longer sufficient to serve the requirements of business in the face of rapid change and complexity. I am always pleased when I find a […]

(This is the fourth in a series of articles on elements of Integral Leadership. Business leaders, individually and collectively, clarify the purpose of leadership in relation to business objectives. This sets the context for commitment by individual leaders. It also establishes how leaders can determine what is important about using leadership resources: time, energy, information, […]

In the last issue the subject was leadership on purpose. With this issue I continue to unfold some themes about Integral Leadership. This approach builds on the models and theories of Ken Wilber to provide a practical, business-savvy approach to executive leadership. Leaders need to understand the nature of the resources that they have at their disposal […]

In the last issue I wrote about our need to transcend and include the limiting model of heroic leadership. It isn’t that we have no reason to value heroic acts of leadership. They continue to be important to us. We need to recognize both the heroic and the collective. In the remarks that follow, I am concerned […]

In the last issue the subject was leadership on purpose. With this issue I continue to unfold some themes about Integral Leadership. This approach builds on the models and theories of Ken Wilber to provide a practical, business-savvy approach to executive leadership. Leaders need to understand the nature of the resources that they have at their disposal […]

As an individual act, leadership is most often seen as heroic in some sense. I describe the models of leadership that prevail in business as heroic, because they treat the leader as the center of their way of thinking with the expectation that the leaders behavior determines the success of any enterprise. And leadership is […]

Jaap Geerlof and Anke van Beckhoven           Abstract Our home country, The Netherlands, seems to be a fertile ground for self-organizing organizations and is an incubator for researchers that are interested in the topic of leadership and self-organization. Scientific literature unveils that the question of leadership of self-organizing organizations is surrounded by […]

Sue L. T. McGregor PhD Professor Emerita (MSVU) Introduction Despite a “plurality of transdisciplinary models” (Nicolescu, 2008c, p. 13), the full range of transdisciplinarity has not yet been fully grasped and tabulated (du Plessis, Sehume, & Martin, 2013; Jahn, 2012). However, two approaches to transdisciplinary tend to prevail: (a) the Nicolescuian approach and (b) the Zurich […]

Mark McCaslin The Integral Leadership Review is the world’s premier publication of integrated approaches to leading and leadership. It is a bridging publication that links authors and readers across cultures around the world. It serves leaders, professionals and academics engaged in the practice, development and theory of leadership. It bridges multiple perspectives by drawing on […]

Mark McCaslin “Faculty are losing out, too. Research and publications have become the primary means by which most professors achieve academic status, and yet many academics are, in fact, drawn to the profession precisely because of their love for teaching or service—even for making the world a better place.” (Boyer, 1990, p. xii)  Twenty-five years […]

Marco Antonio Robledo Abstract 3D-Management is an integral meta-theory of management that integrates organizational knowledge in an integral, balanced and non-marginalizing framework. It stands for Three-Dimensional Management, in reference to the three fundamental and irreducible dimensions (the Big Three) that integral management should address: science, arts and ethics, which refer respectively to the techno-economical, the […]

Detlev Bohle   Service excellence, knowledge intensive service development and wisdom based services are discussed. The review of the present of wisdom based services is based on integral theory. Abstract From the complex landscape of needs of companies and individuals alike a new type of services is emerging for which the terminus wisdom based services […]

Said E. Dawlabani #IEC2016 – Keynote Speech Now we’re going to focus fully on the state of the capitalist system. Today, capitalism is experiencing one of the most profound challenges in its history. Some leading thinkers believe that it might not even survive the current technological disruption. We’re going to take a look at some of […]

Heidi Gutekunst, Hilary Bradbury and Dana Carman About the Eros/Power Workshop I will use just two adjectives: shocking and revealing! Shocking because of the very loving but professional way it led me to explore deep and hidden aspects about my sexuality and sensuality, both male and female sides, with which I rarely make contact. And revealing because […]

Thomas A. Habib Abstract A couples line of development is proposed from an integral perspective. The couples line specifies developmental stages, tasks for each stage and describes cultural messages that impede development. It reveals the nature and effects of an integral concept called a pre/trans fallacy unique to early intimate relationships and how this often […]

Integral For The Masses Moving from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm An Integral Leader’s Story Keith Bellamy The wires of the Internet have been running extremely hot the past few days as Integralistas from all corners of the globe have been discussing, with extreme passion, the difference between theory and meta-theory and the rights […]

The Secret to Transform the Next 500 Years by Keith Bellamy Imagine, if you can, that you are a fly on the wall of a meeting that was taking place in the city of Aachen in 1439. In this equivalent of the mid 20th Century “smoke filled room” (remember Sir Walter Raleigh hasn’t brought tobacco […]

Subway Ride to the Bronx by Keith Bellamy I recently undertook one of those seminal transformative acts that not only changes one’s life, but continues to reverberate through one’s whole being even after the actual event is a distant memory. No this wasn’t a silent retreat, nor an ecstatic dance weekend, nor an exquisite deep […]

First an apology to anybody who was expecting to see the second part of my article on the work that we did on the State of the Integral Spirituality Movement at the Integral New York City Salon (iNYCS) earlier this year. It was always my intention to present the conclusions that we arrived at in […]

We have been very busy little beavers here in the New York City Integral Community of late. On the surface, it might appear as if we have been continuing in our normal manner, holding meetings and discussing our future plans and generally seeking to further the cause in the Metropolis. Any casual observer probably wouldn’t […]

The ancient Chinese curse, “May your children live in interesting times” is well and truly upon us. With every passing day, life as we have come to know and love it seems to be unraveling at the seams. For many, a wave of suffering is washing away expectations, and lifestyles are being torn to shreds […]

Greetings to all our reader(s)—well I know that there is a least one as he writes to comment on each article almost immediately after publication—here’s wishing you a healthy and harmonious 2009 and may all the trials and tribulations of 2008 fade rapidly into a distant memory or in some cases just a bad nightmare. […]

This column comes with a health warning. Those people who are allergic to or intolerant of “vented spleen” are advised to either turn to another article in this great issue of the Integral Leadership Review, or to ensure that they are wearing the appropriate protective clothing. I have to admit that as I sit writing […]

As I sit to write this article my mailbox is starting to fill with reports from the attendees at the Integral Theory Conference near San Francisco that was held last week. If I am totally honest, I am more than a little envious of the wonderful experience that attendees seemed to have had and look […]

Whilst threatening to expose both how long in the tooth I am and my slightly warped musical tastes I have to admit that one of my favorite recordings of all time is The Yes Album by the band Yes (there was a clear thread of Zen influence on the Progressive Rock scene back in 1971 when it […]

The heavens punish us by giving us what we wish for, or so the old saying goes. At a meeting of the Management Review Board for the ILR. I argued for the need to have specialized or focused editions of this august organ. Whilst I was my normal loquacious and persuasive self in the debate, I […]

New York: The most fascinating show in town this summer has, in my opinion, played out not on Broadway but down at the tip of Manhattan on Wall Street. From the same people who brought you such previous delights as “The 1929 Crash,” “Melt Down in South America,” and “Bursting the dot-com bubble,” amongst many […]

It is two minutes to midnight on Friday 20th July 2007; I am standing in line with about 70,000 other individuals in Diagon Alley awaiting the culmination of the publishing event of the century, maybe of all time. Of course those of you who are up to speed with the antics of the young wizard […]

At the tender age of eight years old, Robb Smith had already started to build a portfolio of stocks and shares. Born in the 1970s and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area he was just doing what all the other kids were doing at the time. This was the time of the “Barbarians at […]

As a student of Integral Leadership can you imagine how it might feel to be told that you are to be the first Chief Executive of the most prestigious integral organization on the face of the planet? More than that, can you imagine what it might feel like to be told that you are going […]

For some reason that completely escapes me, our minds here in the west seem to do anything other than focus on the present at this time of the year. Perhaps it is the watery sunshine, which is in very short supply due to the tilting of the earth’s angle, kicking off some deep-seated part of […]

A fundamental tenet of Integral Theory places the role of myth at an early stage of development both individually and collectively.  Those who allow myths to dictate and dominate their lives are deemed to be operating at a pre-rational level of cognition.  One of the major criticisms of the New Age Movement is that it […]

Protecting the Integral Crown Jewels – a leadership responsibility for those pursuing an Integral path? “Isn’t life a bitch?” the tall bald-headed one from Boulder, Colorado responded to a question that I put to him when he was visiting with a group of us from the New York Integral Community a few weeks back. Little […]

Integral Awareness Earlier this week I had the honour and the privilege to be sitting in my local Integral Salon listening to one of the Salon members recount a recent experience where she had attempted to introduce Integral Theory to a group of CEOs.  At a weekend retreat, she and her colleagues were trying to […]

Leading into a new Stage: It’s all in the signs?…or maybe not! The following is a conversation that I imagine might have taken place in the late 1970s between an official at the Dutch Ministry of Transport and a civil engineer called Hans Monderman. “Hans, it’s Pieter from the Ministry. How are you?” “I’m good […]

Saturday, August 6th 2005 The thunderstorms that we had been promised overnight had failed to materialise, although the air most definitely felt a little cooler and less humid than we had been experiencing for the past few days. I then reminded myself that it was 7:30 in the morning as I was climbing into the […]

We live in interesting times! I had thought that I was beyond being shocked and surprised at the changes I see taking place all around me. But a headline in the London Evening Standard in April of this year proved that this life still has a trick or two in store for me yet. What, you might […]

I tend to consider myself as a fairly simple soul, although others who are close to me might think differently. Since discovering Integral Theory, I have attempted to lead my life in a manner that allows the decisions that I take to be integrally informed. I have the humility, I hope, to recognise that I […]

As I embarked on my own personal odyssey and started to develop a personal Transformative Practice in the days before I had heard of Integral let alone started to try to understand what it means, I pursued three avenues of enlightenment.  Before I tell you what they were, I feel I need to give you […]

I am making the assumption that you are reading this on the screen of your computer.  If you happen to be one of those individuals who prints copies of this newsletter and reads at a time and place that feels more convenient than on your desktop, laptop or any other preferred device, the following is […]

Senge, P., C. O. Scharmer, J. Jaworski, and B. S. Flowers. Presence: Human Purpose and the Field of the Future. Cambridge, M A: The Society for Organizational Learning, 2004. Every now and then a book comes along that really shakes my tree. This is one of them. Constructed around C. Otto Sharmer’s “U” model of different levels of […]

Edith Friesen and Edith Friesen EF:  Before we start, there’s something you need to know. IN:  Okay… EF:  I’m not sure why they asked me to do this interview. Mostly, I just write and guide writers. And I do a little communications work. I don’t usually think of myself as a leader. IN:  Am I […]

Beth Sanders At the threshold I feel queasy and sick throughout my whole being. It is soon my turn to step into the choice I have already made. It isn’t too late to turn back. My knees rock forward and back while a voice in my head utters, “I am not ready, I am not […]

Olen Gunnlaugson [i] Engaging conversation directly from essence and source activates essential conditions for leaders to embody a creative perception and transformed way of being.  This article[ii] is written to inspire new possibilities for how existing approaches to collective presencing and conversational leadership are experienced by introducing a process-method of conversation that is activated through source directed […]

Linda Shore  I am thrilled about the potential that exists in a world that finds us moving from green to integral yellow on the Spiral Dynamic map of human growth, where all four burners of the AQAL map of human possibility are fully ignited. Hail to the 4 voices! And while I am integrally jazzed, […]

Michael Chender Authentic Leadership in Action — ALIA — had its first program in 2001 as the Shambhala Institute, subsequently named the Shambhala Institute for Authentic Leadership. It has operated continually since then, and in November 2014 merged with the Authentic Leadership program at Naropa University to create Naropa’s Authentic Leadership Center. What follows are […]

Julia Fortier and Karen Kun Abstract:  As a youth focused water facilitation organization, Waterlution is constantly exploring new ways to build dynamic young water leaders. For the last twelve years, Waterlution has engaged over four thousand youth and five hundred expert resource guests in its community-based programming. By engaging local young leaders (change-agents) Waterlution supports […]

Janice Simcoe “There are many roads to the High Place”[i] A Story The story, as I received it, is about different kinds of leadership and how each has its place and space.   First I will provide some context.  The Anishinaabe, also called the Ojibwe, people have a clan system that, among other things, helps to […]

Brian and Mary Nattrass In the following article Brian and Mary Nattrass (1999, 2002) (who have been organizational change strategists teaching and consulting using The Natural Step framework for sustainability for over 20 years) walk Leaders through a path that shows how to negotiate the resistant Old Story into the life-giving New Story of sustainability in […]

Gail Hochachka Abstract: One Sky carried out an Integral Leadership Program with the Brazil nut value chain in Bolivia and Peru, in partnership with Costco the fourth largest retailer in the US, as well as Candor, one of his main buyers, along with the Canadian nonprofit organization Integral Without Borders Institute. As an overall goal, the […]

Ian Wight Engaging the Integral/Professional Interface I am feeling a yearning for the company of like-minded and like-hearted folks: integral aficionados explicitly valuing their professional identity; evolving professionals explicitly cultivating integral sensibilities. I therefore make this particular offering very much in the spirit of my own integrally-informed sense of Leadership – as Service – for […]

Rebecca Ejo Colwell For several years my koan has been:  How do we close the gap between the human condition and our human potential? I first started to grapple with questions around how to catalyze and support collaboration for change while working in community development early in my career in the 1980s, in two Canadian […]

Sue L. T. McGregor The world is facing a polycrisis of complex problems – a cacophony of irreversible climate change and ecological imbalance, global pandemics, escalating terrorism, conflict and aggression, unsustainable consumerism, debilitating poverty, reoccurring political and economic crises, worrying population growth and migration, uneven wealth and income distribution, uneven and unsustainable growth and development, […]

 Our Journey as a School of Leadership Studies Brigitte Harris and Niels Agger-Gupta The MA Leadership program was the first offering of the newly created Royal Roads University (RRU) in 1996. The program was designed for mid-career professionals with at least five to ten years of leadership experience. Designed on pioneering, paradigm-changing but rigorously referenced […]

Todd J. Barry Abstract:  Leadership is, at times, the calling out and identification of lack of leadership.  This paper uses a case study to propose an original idea, that of policy by tautologies in the George W. Bush administration and the international community.  A tautology is a type of circular group reasoning.  While President Bush […]

Kim Arellano Ten thousand Millennials turn 21 each day (Torres, 2014, para. 5), while ten thousand Baby Boomers retire each day (Newsmax, 2010, para. 1). By 2025, the Millennials will make up 75% of the U.S. Labor Force (Tyler, 2013, para. 1). Many organizations are facing several challenges including transferring valuable knowledge to a younger […]

Jim Best Background Purpose In this paper I provide a description of complexity leadership theory and its antecedents in complexity science, and then use integral theory as a meta-theory to evaluate complexity leadership theory.  I will use Wilber’s AQAL model as interpreted by Forman and Ross, focusing on quadrants, lines, stages, and meaning-making systems.  Complexity […]

Jorge Taborga Abstract This essay examines conscious evolution through an integral lens. It presents a perspective on the dilemma of our times focusing on evolutionary responsibility. Evolution is examined from the dimensions of depth and complexity, or subjectivity and objectivity. Frameworks are explored encapsulating human evolution from both of these dimensions. The integral framework is […]

Christine Haskell Abstract Corporate leaders focus primarily on growing their businesses. They should also focus on mitigating potential setbacks (crises). Innovation (in its many forms) is a guided exploration of purposeful uncertainty. A company knows they want to grow but are generally unsure how. Customer-centric approaches such as participatory innovation are a recent focus for […]

Eric Reynolds [This is a revised version of a paper submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for a PhD seminar, Integral Leadership, offered at Saybrook University by Russ Volckmann in the Fall 2012. The assignment was to bring an integral lens to three articles on leadership that were not required reading for the course. […]

Diane Meyer Life is—or has—meaning and meaninglessness. I cherish the anxious hope that meaning will preponderate and win the battle. (Jung, 1998, p. 359). Art reflects the soul of humanity, its beauty, dissonance, and struggle. We can’t imagine our world without art. But artists, unless they have received the acknowledgement of the great museums, are […]

Giorgio Piacenza Cabrera Part One: Inca Quadrants Similar to Those of Ken Wilber’s Integral Theory Introduction The four dimensions that combine to form the quadrants in Integral Theory are the Individual, Plural, Interior and Exterior. These quadrants are similar to the main dimensions defining the Quechua-Andean quadrants. Like Integral Theory, these dimensions also complement each […]

Walker Karraa As integral leadership juxtaposes Western and Eastern leadership philosophies and epistemologies, the contrast can often feel murky, ambiguous to those of us striving to live a life of leadership grounded in appreciation of difference, dare I say diversity. At this cross roads, Eastern philosophies appear more palatable to the West, and theories of […]

Jorge Taborga Abstract This case study investigates the impact of leadership stage development in transformational change initiatives. In particular, it looks at how the structure and characteristics of leadership teams determine large change outcomes in organizations. The core theory that grounds this research is that post-conventional leadership is required for organizational transformation to take place. […]

Complexity Leadership: An Overview and Key Limitations Barrett C. Brown Abstract An overview of the complexity leadership literature is provided. This includes a history of complexity theory and its core concepts, the central propositions of complexity leadership, a review of six prominent frameworks, and a summary of practitioner guidelines. The article also discusses two key […]

How Organizational Archetypes Manifest at Each Level of the Gravesian Value Systems Jorge Taborga Abstract Organizational culture provides the impetus for the behaviors in an organization which work to fulfill its mission or work against it. Schein (2010) stratifies culture into artifacts, values and beliefs, and underlying assumptions. The latter are the deeper and unexamined […]

When we can find them we publish PhD student papers from various institutions. These papers are typically done as part of a class in leadership, integral leadership or other related topics. Learners and professors are invited to submit papers for publication. Coaching with an Integral Lens Lynn Harrison Saybrook University   Introduction Leading successfully in […]

Stacy Townsley Introduction: Perspectives on Change My research interest centers on how we can bridge old and new social structures in addressing societal needs. Social entrepreneurship (SE)—also referred to in this paper as social innovation—is possibly one type of ‘bridge’ social structure. The definition of social entrepreneurship varies, although all conceptions at least implicitly center […]

Kelly McInnes, University of Saskatchewan, Canada Introduction The purpose of this paper is to review the evolution of leadership and the evolution of mentorship as it has occurred over the last 34 years and provide speculation about the next phase of mentorship in relation to the evolution of leadership. Both leadership and mentorship are constructs […]

Abstract:Increasing complexity and demands of leadership in the twenty-first century challenge leaders to find effective and meaningful ways of leading, challenge our thinking about how cultures and systems can support the emergence of leadership, and seek solutions to unexpected challenges that face our organizations and societies. Integral philosophy offers a unifying lens to advance an […]

Linda Lilian Northhouse (2007:p3) said leadership was a process in which an individual influences a group of individuals to achieve a common goal. In this definition emphasis is placed on the individuals ability to influence. In this paper it is argued that leadership is rooted in the individual (self), thus affecting the individual who in […]

Linda Lilia Introduction “Embwa ezala embwa” (a dog reproduces a dog) was a response given in a research inquiry regarding women were more ethically apt than men. The response which hinged on women’s performance as legislators received a feedback that indicated a woman being mentored in a patriarchal system would not deliver the much anticipated […]

Todd Hatley Introduction While there’s uncertainty regarding the success rate of organizational change and improvement efforts, many reports show failure rates of 60-70%. Decker and his colleagues (2012) suggest that change and improvement efforts can be improved by appropriately diagnosing what changes are needed and the organization’s readiness to change. My reading in the areas […]

Sherill Lambruschini Abstract This article is a review of the literature and serves as a theoretical framework that helps shed light about experiences of interpersonal connections of leaders in the workplace.  Literature from several fields within leadership that influences the area of inquiry related to interpersonal connections and emotions of leaders will be discussed.  In […]

The Nonlinearity of Cultural Tradition: Baron Carl von Clausewitz, the First Vector of the On War Fractal X by Jeannie Carlisle Volckmann Few would disagree that On War by Barron Carl von Clausewitz (1780-1831), is the most influential book ever written on military philosophy in the Western world. Its popularity has not waned since the […]

Jeremy D Johnson I found myself struggling to find the appropriate leading note for this discussion. History seems to have irrupted this year, reminding us that, after all, things are still happening “out there” in the polis and “in here,” the indwelling and painful irruptions of new possibilities, and new regenerative visions, of a world enacted with […]

Lisa Norton “2020 brought an unexpected opportunity: a powerful challenge to entrenched ways of thinking about the future. The pandemic shock, which has touched every single one of us in various and diverse ways, has allowed for a global experiment with uncertainty. This experiment unveiled a significant flaw in the way humanity uses-the-future today, and […]

I’ve been compelled to share these principles across the world, most recently in 30+ events for young entrepreneurs and major corporations in Morocco and Africa, over the span of nearly 3 years.

The Thrive Paradox framework is a pathway for understanding the complex intersectionality of gender equity and acts as a powerful tool for creating fundamental shifts in beliefs and sustainable change in our living systems.

Based on my own experience, I offer the following insights into differences in culture and the challenges a faculty member may experience on entering the new world of business.

Tom Habib Our need to share our experiences at IEC 2020 threatened to relegate us to a Tower of Babel. The energy swirled among the members of San Diego Integral who attended the conference. Our intent was to share a single presentation that changed us. We invited fellow Integralists form all over the globe. Jesse Greene was up at […]

Eugene Pustoshkin This essay was initially written for the Integral European Conference 2020 newsletter and blog in March 2020—it was published there in a significantly abbreviated form. The current version of the text was expanded and updated in June 2020.  There are a few streams of the Integral movement’s emergence and growth in Russia. In […]

Kurt Johnson, Robert Atkinson, Diane Marie Williams and Deborah Moldow  When discussions turn to the multifarious complexities of interconnected challenges and possible solutions, Ken Wilber is well known for sitting back, laughing, and saying “yes, it’s an all-quadrant-phenomenon—all the time!”   By this—in integral terms—he means that we all have our first person, second person, third […]

John O’Neill The XXIV World Congress of Philosophy August 13- 20, 2018 – Beijing, China The World Congress of Philosophy is a global gathering of philosophers held every five years, since its inception in 1900, in a different city each time. Recent previous ones were held in Istanbul, Seoul and Athens. They are opportunities for […]

Kurt Johnson and David Sloan Wilson Both of us, as arguably well-positioned “mainstream” academics and also social and cultural leaders, have for some years been part of the further dissemination and dialogue concerning the “integral vision and message”. Advertently or inadvertently we have found ourselves bringing the work of writers like Ken Wilber, Don Beck, […]

Bence Gánti What is the IEC? The Integral European Conferences are the prime venue today for the global integral world to meet. Held every two years on the European continent, IECs are not only a huge social catalyst where international integral collaborations begin, enabling our human capital to grow, they also have a mission based […]

Brian McConnell This segment of Notes from the Field reflects the shared experience of a small band of reflective practitioners originating in Roanoke, Virginia and interfacing with each other as participants, along with some 300 other such teams from around the world, in the Presencing Institute’s recently launched, “Societal Transformation Lab”. Drawing from a set […]

Blake Poland A Mindful Society (amindfulsociety.org) is an annual forum for those interested and/or active in taking mindfulness practice ‘off the cushion’ and into all sectors of society. In addition to pre- and post-conference workshops, led this year by Dr Dan Seigel and Thupten Jinpa (the Dalai Lama’s personal translator) respectively, over 500 delegates were […]

Ryan Nakade & Devon Almond The ways of the world evolve as we evolve. Our lenses of life shift as we shift. Each way of the world has its place, its value, and its limitations. Each way of the world also offers its leadership gifts. While leadership, itself, is as developmentally diverse as our inner […]

Anne-Marie Voorhoeve, with contributions from Diana Claire Douglas In this article Anne-Marie Voorhoeve shares the development of THC-The Hague Center for Global Governance, Innovation and Emergence as a Second Tier organization, how it develops Meshwork practices, how it is using Action Research for its own development and applying outcomes and learnings for challenges. Action Research is […]

Teddy Hebo Larsen What lessons can be learned from highly developed democratic societies, and how relevant are those lessons to developing nations?     These most relevant questions are of high interest for (at least) the following reasons:   From a memetic point of view numerous countries in Europe (primarily in Northern Europe) are right […]

Jane Allen & Heidi Gutekunst “We experience a world with great beauty and potential yet with too much stumbling and misuse of power, a world dominated by dysfunctional structures, fear and foregone potential.”  (Allen and Gutekunst 12)   We need new ways of thinking, being and acting to deal with the opportunities and challenges we […]

Edward J Kelly  “When the facts change, I change my mind; what do you do sir”? John Milton Keynes It is self-evident that each one of us is an individual and that as individuals we are impacted, directly or indirectly, by the organisations we are associated with. In turn, organisations and individuals are all enmeshed in […]

Alain B. Volz Based on traditional values of the Dagomba tribe in Ghana Northern Region and 21stcentury Holistic principles we are developing a Sharing Economy called Leap into Life. The last 2 years we have been working from grass root level in Ghana and The Netherlands on the design of an informal economy where people […]

Aleksandr Drobiazko “Only the whole makes sense” – G.W.F. Hegel As it has been pointed out by Ken Wilber in his work “Introduction to Integral Theory and Practice”, over the last three decades we have witnessed a situation that is unprecedented in history: from now on we have access to all the cultures of the world. […]

Galina Svirina (Susloparova), Ph.D. What can be more important than harmony in personal and working relationships? Yet, it seems that this area of our life tends to be challenging, even for the most successful people. Many thinkers, psychologists, religious and spiritual leaders, have been trying to find a philosopher stone, one secret element necessary for […]

Mary Ann Thompson-Frenk Note to reader: Traditional humanitarianism seeks to alleviate a symptom. Integral humanitarianism views an individual project as a Systemic remedy. Identifying where within the ecological, social, cultural and economic systems one can have the greatest positive impact and what methods should be used is Social Acupuncture. The people’s transformation into conscious cultural […]

Alain Volz This article is an English translation of an article previously published in Dutch on July 2nd 2016. With special thanks to Michiel Doorn who helped with the translation. Those that know me are aware that, already for five years, I have been traveling between Ghana and the Netherlands. In Ghana, I work with […]

Alain Volz Story of an emerging Social Economy that combines tradition with innovation.  In this article I will describe the journey Umar Mohammed and I are travelling as Leap into Life Dipaliya and how my journey started. Those who know the Star Trek series recognize the first sentence written here above. Though we haven’t left […]

K. Keyvne Baar As we, the Human Science Institute (HIS), prepare for our second conference (8-10 September 2016 in Salt Lake City), it was decided that a recap of the experiences from the inaugural conference was in order. I was nominated for the assignment. In many ways I am the least obvious person to take […]

Lev Gordon Last two months I was going through an interesting period, which was over yesterday… On November 12 I turned 42 (an age often referred to as “middle age crisis”) and so it seems that a month before and a month after were some sort of cutting ties with the past and searching for […]

Anouk Brack, MSc. In 2015 I traveled to Moscow twice to teach about Leadership Embodiment in the Embodiment Facilitator Course (EFC) by Mark Walsh and Alexandra Vilvovskaya. I was asked to reflect on my experience teaching in Russia for this special edition of Integral Leadership Review. Context: the Embodiment Facilitator Course This course is aimed […]

Bill Baue and Robin Wood To achieve sustainability, we need to transcend the sustainability paradigm – a limiting mindset that (counter-intuitively) has only succeeded in solidifying unsustainability. We need to transcend and include sustainability by integrating it into a new meta-paradigm that spawns systems designed to thrive, sustainably. To get from here to there, integral […]

Mark McCaslin Recently, I had the pleasure of representing Integral Leadership Review and the School for Advanced Studies, University of Phoenix, at the International Leadership Associations’ annual conference.  Being involved as I am with the Integral Leadership Review I am often questioned by the affiliates of the Center for Leadership Studies and Educational Research, the […]

Assembled & edited by Jane Allen and Nick Owen Snapshots of a transformational leadership conference with inputs from Bill Torbert & Frederic Laloux Amara is a collaboration of likeminded leadership practitioners formed earlier this year with the stated purpose of doubling the number of leaders with transformational leadership capacity worldwide within 25 years. The founders […]

Edward Kelley INTRODUCTION  Over the past 2-3 years we have run a number of retreats on The Third Act in life. In April of this year we also ran a successful Third Act Conference. More recently we have been running Third Act workshops in which we have moved our attention to what work we can […]

Jeremy D. Johnson Elza Maalouf gave her ITC2015 keynote on Saturday morning. I was present – as the ITC live blogger – and published the bulk of my notes for her talk on my homepage[i] The following is an extended version of that morning’s blog post. As Mark Fabionar mentioned to me back in June, “Elza […]

You can buy a video of Sean Hargens’ opening presentation and more from ITC 2015 here. Well worth watching for a status of integral theory, its impact and potential. His presentation on the list of projects around the world is remarkable. In the US, Europe and Asia individuals are applying integral approaches and making remarkable impact. Also […]

2015-16 State of the Future Jerome C. Glenn, Elizabeth Florescu and The Millennium Project Team http://millennium-project.org/millennium/201516SOF.html Concerned for “the” and “our” future? Highly recommended report by the UN sponsored Millennium Project. The report contains much more useful information than can be offered in this space. The link above provides access to the full report and […]

Paul Gibbs In late July, Middlesex University hosted a symposium of invited academics, thinkers and practitioners to discuss the nature of transdisciplinarity in the context of UK postgraduate higher education. Participants included Professor Nicolescu and academics from universities in the UK including Middlesex, Kings, University College London Institute of Education (UCL IOE) and Manchester, and […]

Elizabeth Kennedy The altar stood tall, and stood out in the room.  Simply walking into Bence Ganti’s Integral Flow Experience you sense something special is going to happen here.   Bence uses an altar and ceremony to affect the lower left aspect of the class – and it works beautifully.  Integral Flow experience is truly a […]

Alia Aurami  A nexus for integral, next-stage organizations is born Since Frederic Laloux published his Reinventing Organizations: A Guide to Creating Organizations Inspired by the Next-Stage of Human Consciousness, with foreword by Ken Wilber, the impact of Integral on businesses and other organizations will never be the same. The author seems to have hit a […]

Bill Toth As I stood on the balcony of the Herrenhausen Palace, overlooking the magnificent gardens I felt very fortunate to be invited, along with 26 other PhD students to this gathering of systems thinkers from around the world to consider the interesting problem of Anthropocene governance.  It was not initially clear what the objective […]

Therese Rowley Notes from June 10, 2015 A panel of three young, knowledgeable professionals, representing the fields of green architecture, engineering, construction and interior design spoke about how they were purpose-driven in each deciding to start their own companies. They were each determined to achieve business success (for themselves and their clients) by partnering with […]

Crisis Management Workshop: Renton Washington: April 29, 2015 – May 1, 2015 Dena Rosko I supported community engagement for the crisis management workshop and certificate program from Saybrook University. My team members included Roderick Campbell and Eric Dooley-Feldman, with faculty members Nancy Southern, Gary Metcalf, and Ian Mitroff. The workshop was distinctive because it focused […]

Allison Stern Travel offers many opportunities, among them the chance to broaden one’s mind. As a lived experience, travel also offers access to insight through other, more holistic ways of knowing. My recent excursion to Cape Town, South Africa was just that: an integrated foray into other ways of knowing via The Presencing Institute’s in […]

Integral Workshop on December 18-21 at the Center for Development of Entrepreneurs (Sberbank) in Izhevsk. Eugene Pustoshkin I was invited to come to Izhevsk on December 18-21, 2014. There is a group of people who work on Integral development of this city and promoting ideas of holistic vision as applied to urbanism. The group is […]

Taoism: a gift to the world: Key takeaways from the 3rd International Taoist Forum Jean-Claude Pierre On November 25/26 2014, the 3rd international Taoist Forum, held in Longhu mountains, Jiangxi province, China, gathered some 600 participants from 27 countries. After a bit of history about this forum, its aim and a few words about the […]

A first person account of creating the 1st Integral European Conference, May 8-11, 2014 in Budapest Dennis Wittrock So it’s over now. We did it. What a blast, what a joy, what an amazing conference experience this has been! What a ride! Let’s rewind the tape right back to the beginning. Where is the beginning […]

A Personal Review Donald Clark Over the weekend of September 12th to 14th, I attended an Alethic Living retreat run by Gary Hawke. This is the third year I have attend a weekend retreat run by Gary, each year he offers a deeper exploration of how a metatheory that links Wilber, Bhaskar, Laske, and Levinas […]

Benyamin Lichtenstein Each year, scholars from business schools around the world gather to share our research and explore new ideas and approaches in management, leadership, entrepreneurship, strategy, ethics, organizational change, and more. This year the conference hosted over 10,000 academics who attended over 2000 different sessions, representing up to 100 different presentation sessions at each […]

In October we have the privilege of hosting Bence Ganti for an evening introduction to his Integral Flow Therapy process. Bence is something of a rising star in the integral community. He was the main organizer of the first Integral Europe conference in May, which drew over 500 people, and has for some years been […]

Brian van der Horst The world does not sing the praises of Paris in the springtime for naught. For the sphere of integral leadership, it was certainly is the season for international conferences to be jolly at in France– generally listed as the world’s top vacation destination, with more that 32 million people visiting the […]

Huntington’s Disease Survivor Millis Mershon and Caregiver Robert Wayne Johnston By Way of Introduction This sketch is intended as an introduction to the new therapy my wife Millis and I developed to treat her gene-driven Huntington’s Disease (HD). It is based mainly on Bruce Lipton’s pioneering epigenetic research; we call it Integral Epigenetic Love Therapy 24/7. After two […]

Lynne Devnew  I had the opportunity to spend two days in Phoenix, Arizona at an exciting event introducing the first nine University of Phoenix Research Centers. I thought I’d share what I thought were the most relevant highlights with you. My focus will be on the intended contributions the research centers will make to the growth of scholarship […]

34th Annual Conference – From Margins to Center: Bringing Consciousness Forward Tom Christensen From Wednesday until late on Saturday, 27-30 March, 2014, at a beautiful, bucolic, and art filled setting in Portland, Oregon a group of 60-80 people gathered to share an inquiry into the nature of human consciousness. Some of these folk have been […]

Tim Winton’s PatternDynamics™ Level One Training, Bellingham, Washington, USA, January 26, 2014 Alia Aurami, Laurel Johnson, Amanda Suutari Alia Aurami’s Review Note: Most of my text below is close paraphrase or near-quotation, and except as otherwise noted, “I” is Tim. Reflections and comments by this author, and “I” as this author, should be clear in […]

Transformational Leadership: Tapping into Your Personal DNA – An Executive Education program facilitated by Prasad Kaipa in Bangladesh. Every now and then I encounter something that surprises me or deepens my thinking about it. Usually I notice that I have not been aware of an assumption or perspective I hold. This experience opens the door […]

Ed Kelly’s Third Act Workshop, Skibbereen, County Cork, Ireland, January 24 – 26, 2014 Nick Owen An e-mail arrived about a week before the programme started. It said something like: Bring a bottle of wine or maybe a cake. Even better bring an anecdote, a story, a song or a poem to share after dinner. […]

Russ Volckmann The following is the current list of resource material for the advanced PhD seminar in integral leadership that I am teaching at Saybrook University (online discussion/presentations) beginning the first week of February 2014, This list is growing and does not inlcude, for example, material from the last year of Integral Leadership Review. If […]

Alia Aurami Leadership on the Bleeding Edge of Humanity’s Evolution  All event photos courtesy Alyssa Morin, used by permission.[i] Most challenges for Integrally-oriented leaders stem from working with people/situations primarily at First Tier consciousness. If you’re interested in the following entirely different kinds of leadership challenges, you would have loved the 2013 “Integral Living Room” […]

Mark Roddam Like I am sure many other readers of the Integral Leadership Review, I have a deep appreciation of the need for humanity to take a giant leap in consciousness if we are to successfully tackle the collective challenges we face. Humanity is edging ever closer to crisis. The old ways of doing things […]

Eugene Pustoshkin November and December 2013 were rich on Integral events in Russia. In November, the Russians finally saw the fruits of literally a few years of publishing endeavors. The long-awaited Ken Wilber’s works Integral Spirituality and Boomeritis were released as ebooks; and Moscow-based Postum Publishers printed Wilber’s A Theory of Everything. Now a team […]

Eugene Pustoshkin I went to sleep and woke up thinking about something Ken Wilber said in the previous day’s talk at the Integral Center (Boulder, Colorado, USA)—an important talk which I recommend all to watch. At some point in the talk Wilber spoke about the differences between translation and transformation (I partially touched this issue […]

The Online Conference: Co-Emergence: Leading from the Edge of Possibility Michael McElhenie For Integral Leadership in Action, our 2013 conference was a grand and periodically terrifying experiment. Our organizing group had prepared for an in-person conference in Santa Cruz, yet economic and logistical considerations influenced us to switch gears to an interactive, online format. With […]

Dr. Don E. Beck Julianna D. Padgett, Ph.D., LCSW, Assistant Dean of the School of Social Work at Tulane University led the organization of a presentation and a meetings/trainings between Don Beck, students and faculty with Dr. Laura Horn and Darrell Gooden participating in support. In total, 210 people attended. Additional trainings are scheduled for […]

Eric Reynolds Introduction Integral Theory, as I understand it, is a developmental framework for integrating all kinds of knowledge. It is a transdisciplinary space, a sort of memetic scaffolding where the complex, emergent reality that IS can be mapped, navigated, and ultimately consciously co-created by interested parties coming from a multitude of different perspectives. In […]

Chela Davison I want to be better. Call it an evolutionary impulse or compulsive addiction to seeking adequacy or something else all together. Whatever this is, it has me continually seeking out the very things that bring me to my edge, and propel me into, or through it. It’s this hungry seeker within that has […]

Jonathan Reams I attended the 2013 Integral Theory Conference with my usual tendency to sit somewhat on the margins and observe the gathering with a mix of appreciative and critical eyes. One part of me is grateful for all the work to enable a gathering of people who have a diverse commonality in that they […]

Bruno Roussel and Brian Van der Horst At the Unversity of Toulouse in the South of France, a new organization called Rosace  (the French word for those huge rose-shaped stained-glass windows in cathedrals) has been founded to consult and orient those earning integral doctorates to actually finding gainful employment in the real world. http://rosace.univ-tlse3.fr/ In […]

Mundy Viar As a relative newcomer to the world of integral, this was my first ITC. It was with both excitement and reticence that I ventured into the dense integral sea in Burlingame. Sessions led by seasoned thought leaders, as well as some lesser known at this time, provided ample opportunity to further explore theories […]

Lisa Norton I attended the ITC for the first time in glorious San Francisco in July as a volunteer. I learned a great deal and gained real appreciation for the dedicated co-organizing group comprised of Jeff Bellsey, Valerie Beltran and Lisa Celentano and their generous volunteer team. I hope the following first-person impressions of ITC 2013 […]

Pam Fuhrmann Our relationship to the divine impacts our worldview and our orientation to self and leading others. Our notions of control and emergence; attitudes towards change; ways of relating, collaborating and creating shared meaning; and our perception of paradox are a few such examples the divine’s influence. Through one’s orientation to the divine, one […]

Chela Davison I want to be better. Call it an evolutionary impulse or compulsive addiction to seeking adequacy or something else all together. Whatever this is, it has me continually seeking out the very things that bring me to my edge, and propel me into, or through it. It’s this hungry seeker within that has […]

The Austin Human Emergence Weekend Barbara N. Brown One recurring discussion at the New Year’s What Next Integral conference in Colorado was the emergence of spontaneous integral-like thinking.  Many feel the need to begin to draw these voices in from the wilderness by bringing integral ideas into the mainstream. On March 9-10, Don Beck, Spiral […]

Brian Van der Horst Modes of Explanation, “A Discussion Conference” was held here in Paris—the perfect venue for a post, postmodern gathering of cognitive scientists– on May 21-25. Some 50 participants from around the world included experts in neuroscience and complex adaptive systems theory, theoretical computer science, anthropology, cybernetics, sustainability, complexity, philosophy of science, creativity, […]

Ian McDonald Nearly a year ago, one of the online Integral forums put out a request for case studies covering organisations where Spiral Dynamics Integral or the Integral lens had made a measurable difference to a project outcome. No sector or geographical boundaries.  It became very clear to me, in reading the subsequent threads, that […]

Basarab Nicolescu is already 70 years old. Those who know him can hardly believe it.  So young, so full of energy, at 70? To understand this exceptional case we should get to know him more closely. This is what we tried to achieve in the past few months through many essays, sessions, articles and works, […]

David MacLeod, Trevor Malkinson, Alia Aurami, and Marilyn Hamilton There was an evening workshop in Bellingham, WA, USA, the evening of January 29, 2013, and a one-day workshop in Vancouver, BC, Canada, on February 2, 2013. Notes from David MacLeod on the Bellingham Workshop PatternDynamics ™ is the brainchild of Tim Winton, who developed the […]

 Michael Stern Hooray! The world did not end on December 21, 2012, and thus I had the privilege of attending the What Next conference and ringing in the New Year with the international integral tribe. I spent five days at the lovely Omni Interlocken Resort with around 400 incredibly smart, loving, passionate people. The conference […]

Adrian Wagner, Evronia Azer and Anna-Charlotte Lipp In the Autumn 2012 an integral encounter of a special kind took place: 20 young potential leaders who are involved in projects of different kinds aiming to shape their political and civil societies in their own countries – Egypt and Germany – met for the first time. This […]

Center For Human Emergence – USA (CHE-USA) Spiral Dynamics Integral (SDi) – Educational and Human Resources In the Dr. Donald E. Beck lineage – www.spiraldynamics.net CHE-USA Executive Director – Tom Christensen www.CHE-USA.org (under construction) 1243 Jenifer, Madison, WI 53703 Ofc 608-255-4242   Skype  tomc1243 Given all of the years we have been writing and publishing about […]

Ken Wilber on the Integral Movement in Russia A preface from ILR’s Bureau Chief & Associate Editor in Russia Eugene Pustoshkin: In December 2012, upon an invitation from Ipraktik (Moscow, Russia) Colin Bigelow (Ken Wilber’s Senior Assistant and member of the Board of Directors at the Integral Institute) and Clint Fuhs (CEO of the Integral […]

Brian Van der Horst Paris  Bureau Chief One of the most well-attended integral studies meetings in Paris this year was the “1st International Forum on the Evolution of Consciousness.” Organized by Eric Allodi and a team from Andrew Cohen’s group, EnlightenNext  France. Around 700 participants gathered to hear a combination of European and American limelights […]

Eric Reynolds The 10th International Conference on Transformative Learning entitled A Future for Earth: Re-imagining Learning for a Transforming World was held on November 1st thru 4th in San Francisco, California. There were over 150 presenters teaching a smorgasbord of daily transformative offerings. The majority of the presenters were also participants in the conference, making […]

Raquel Torrent My name is Raquel Torrent, a Spanish woman that has been introducing and developing Integral Consciousness in Spain since 2003, thanks to my work as a psychologist, Integral counselor and teacher. On top of that I am a clear example of a dream come true. To explain such a statement, I have already […]

Roberto Bonilla Núñez and Catia Bernaldo de Quirós Last October 2012, Dr. Don Beck was invited by a chapter of the Spanish Integral  Association to deliver a Spiral Dynamics Integral workshop (certification level 1). This invitation  was issued thanks to the diligent efforts of Catia Bernaldo de Quirós who several months before started exchanging emails […]

The Italian Leader Initiative Towards Sustainable, Safe, Participatory, Inclusive Person-Centered Medicine Paolo Roberti di Sarsina The Charity Association for Person Centred Medicine has been founded in Bologna, Italy, on 1st December 2007. It is registered at the Unified Charity Register Office of the Republic of Italy, in the Section for Social and Social-Health Assistance. The […]

Sergej van Middendorp, Kazuma Matoba and Barton Buechner From 27 to 29 September 2012, a community of scholars and practitioners gathered in Berlin for the SIETAR 2012+38 forum. What drew them together was their strong desire to help bring about Global Integral Competence and Cosmopolitan Communication. To invite the leading edge of practice and thought […]

Reflections on the 2012 SDi Confab – Dallas, Texas Jon Freeman I don’t want to offend anybody – really I don’t – but from the depths of my being I have to say this.   There’s a lot of unconsciousness about conscious evolution.  Conscious Evolution is not the same as personal development, enlightenment or raising personal […]

Russ Volckmann It had been ten years since I attended SDi 1 and SDi 2 certifications in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Marilyn Hamilton was working with Don Beck to facilitate the sessions. If memory serves, there were about 50 people in attendance, almost all unknown to me. But these sessions were all Don. He served […]

Michael Stern & Michael Pergola The deeper field invites me into a more embodied experience of life, where I more fully feel ‘the whole’ – the interdependent systems of which I’m a part, and where I may choose to navigate intuitively and creatively using an inner compass. The subtle skills and sensitivities intrinsic to Whole Field […]

Grow Leaders ? Grow Habitat; Add Speed Bumps, Surprises and Synchronicities Marilyn Hamilton “Make no small plans for they do not have the power to move human’s souls.” Create a Learning Habitat In integral circles, when we talk about designing leadership development capacities, some of us have been known to talk about “creating habitats for […]

Giorgio Piacenza Cabrera I’m a “bird” of several worlds. I was born in Perú and studied many years in the U.S. Now, I’m spending some time again in Perú and recently found that the outstanding and publicly involved French philosopher of complexity Edgar Morin recently came here twice and inspired some local intellectuals to create […]

Jeff Klein The sold out Summit received rave reviews from the 160 participating CEOs and other business leaders. The presenters, presentations and practicums were exceptional and the overall program structure was extremely effective. And while all of this was wonderful, ultimately, the most satisfying and encouraging aspect of the Summit was the energy, enthusiasm and […]

Rafael Nasser It has been years since I experienced Dr. Don Beck work his magic in a crowd. The last time I saw him in action was in NYC about four or five years ago. It was wintertime, and before the event, I recall him describing with childlike glee the excitement he felt walking past […]

Ali Avery What might an integral approach to development look like? What could its scope be? The London Integral Circle Salon met last month to hear Sara J. Walcott present her findings from a study that sought to measure the impact of an Indian public-sector Change Management Programme on the values of the people involved. […]

Tessa Martin I’m almost reluctant to attempt to write a review of the weekend that 14 “integral” lovers (8 Men, 6 Women) experienced with Gary at a beautiful venue in the Dorset countryside, from 2:00 PM Friday to 4:00 PM Sunday, I’m reluctant, as I don’t think my mind awareness can recall enough or my […]

Hendryk Obenaus and Jonathan Klodt How does a contemporary leadership culture look like, that can adequately face the challenges of the 21st century? This question was central to the conference – less theoretical but more as a lived experiment. Already preceding the conference this new culture in the working style of the core team and […]

Nataliya Yefimova This summer we participated in the Integral Forum in Berlin. The decision to go there was made, first of all, from our deep desire to meet in person our European integral friends, who we’d known mainly through the network by that time. And surely it looked really attractive to make the acquaintance of new […]

Lisa Norton and Lynne Palazzolo LN: The Integral Leadership in Action (ILiA) conference May 17-21, 2012 in Santa Cruz, CA, created both an emergence and a continuance of the WE space in the Integral Community. During DJ Sosan’s fabulous dance party, Jennifer Blalock asked me if I would like to write a brief post-conference reflection. […]

Marilyn Bugenhagen Sponsored by the National Association for Campus Activities and the National Clearinghouse for Leadership Programs For over 22 years, two organizations have been holding an annual symposium on leadership programs to further dialogue on the evolution of leadership development and to promote the various aspects to developing leadership through higher education.  The focus […]

Marina Danilova An Integral Journey is a unique way to find a source of energy and drive it into yourself, an exciting opportunity to disclose your own strengths to realize what used to seem to belong to the world of dreams only. What am I doing? What am I contributing to the world? What do […]

Robin Reinach Stuart Davis shared himself, his art, and his thoughts about the Integral Movement with members of Integral New York. On April 20, we met at the TAI center— located at 150 West 30th Street—a new venue for Integral events in NYC. The room was lovely in its starkness, the walls were black, and […]

Julia Fischer Terry Patten On the weekend of March 3rd and 4th, 2012, I attended the first in the series of workshops, Encountering the Beloved, with Terry Patten (and Deborah Boyar). When I arrived, Michael Pergola – whose Integral Alignment organization put on the workshop series – was speaking in a visionary tone. He said […]

Evolving Leadership for an Awakening World: Transforming Leadership through Theory, Action and Application Mark McCaslin I had the opportunity to travel to Santa Cruz, California to attend the Integral Leadership in Action conference. With my increasing involvement with the Integral Leadership Review I was very excited about the opportunity to learn more about this emerging […]

Russ Volckmann Brett Thomas arranged a conference call for people in the Integral Leadership Collaborative and future conference calls with thought leaders. For example, a recently hosted call featured Maureen Metcalf and Mark Palmer, authors of the Innovative Leadership Fieldbook. This initial call included a presentation by Ken Wilber and participation by Brett, Jeff Salzman, Willow […]

Michael Kruse Craig Editor’s Note: Since the author took the advanced integral course, two sets of CDs have been released by Core Integral (https://www.coreintegral.com/) as they continue to offer these learning opportunities both through online courses and sets of CDs. These are featured in the images on either side of this note.  A third course […]

Bjarni S. Jonsson In November 2009, Iceland residents were invited to engage in a dialogue on issues facing the nation following a total collapse of its financial system and resulting in a severe national crisis. The challenge was that of a general visioning for the society and to establish a desirable evolutionary pathway. The event […]

Gregg Hill One Spirit Learning Alliance on February 3, 2012 In deeply contemplating the ever increasing, ever more complicated and intertwining crises facing the world today, one can find a common thread: the financial system and the human species’ relationship to money.  No matter what the problem, if one looks deeply to the root cause, […]

Gary Hawke Once the London Occupy Movement had set up camp outside St Paul’s Cathedral there was a decision made to work towards occupying the mind through community education. To achieve this aim the movement occupied an abandoned Union Bank of Switzerland (UBS) building and created a community space known as The Bank of Ideas. […]

(October 15-16, 2011) Michael Stern One of the brightest stars of the Integral spiritual scene, in my opinion, is Thomas Hubl, a young Austrian teacher who brings a clarity and depth of presence that is as profound as it is soothing. Thomas has quite a large following in Europe, but his popularity in the United […]

Barbara Larisch and Robin Reinach Does Integral make us happier? Martin Ucik questioned at the beginning of his presentation to Integral New York on Oct. 17, 2011. This issue hung in the air throughout Ucik’s presentation at iNY’s beautiful new home at One Spirit Interfaith on West 36th Street. Our long rectangular room was packed […]

Michael Stern When I arrived home in New York City back in September, my number one priority was to find the NYC Integral community and get involved. One of the first places my search led me to was One Spirit Learning Alliance. I recently enrolled in the Integral Mentors and Ministers program there, and my […]

Alexander Savkin and Philipp Guzenuk In October of 2011 the Coach Institute Russia, located in St. Petersburg, joined in partnership with our United States strategic partner Dana Carman, to host a two-week adventure in the US that we called the International Integral Journey. At Coach Institute we have been studying and practicing integral theory and […]

SPIN 2011 18-20th Nov. 2011 Ola Solawe The Madness of Modern Life In modern-day rapid changes, information overload, ever-growing complexity and chronic stress are “normal” state. On a global scale these take shape of unresolvable conflicts, whose reasons and possible solutions remain totally unknown. One example is the latest crisis, unfolding before our very eyes. […]

David Holzmer In A Theory of Everything Ken Wilber (2001) makes the point that “catalytic factors from several dimensions need to be present in order for transformation to occur”(p. 33). As Wilber goes on, he makes the point that conditions and/or circumstances from multiple quadrants of the AQAL model need to simultaneously be aligned in […]

Dmitry Baranov   Image acquired from the Wikipedia article on 2011 Russian protests Dmitry Baranov   Russia witnesses a complex sociopolitical situation today. It is well-known that in 1917 the country experienced a revolution, the result of which was the overthrowing of the Czar’s power and the beginning of 70 years of the greatest experiment […]

  Brian Van der Horst Europa, that cash cow of the occident, is bleating conundrums of continuity, at the time of this writing. Will the European Union survive the financial melt-downs of Greece, Portugal, Italy, and a smattering of middle-eastern nation-states? While Britain smirks with pounds of currency, the Greeks are even thinking of optioning […]

  Integral Spirituality in Sydney, July 2011 Trish Nowland Beginning in early 2011, through discussion and conversation, the Sydney Integral community built momentum and impetus so that the yearning amongst us, to render the heart of Integral Spirituality open and luminous, brought us to a place of shared vision, of seeking to birth something new, […]

 About Spiral Dynamics, Critical Realism and Integral Theory Lisa Jaya Waters September was a month of interesting events: The final week of the Integral Leadership Collaborative Conference in which I played a minor role, but learned a great deal. The Spiral Dynamics Integral (SDi) Level 1 Certification with Don Beck in Dallas, TX was held […]

Venwoude, the Netherlands  24th – 28th August 2011 Nynke Feenstra At the beautiful retreat Venwoude we came together to explore and embody Integral Sustainability Leadership. Our group was 20 participants with 8 different nationalities from 4 generations. The seminar that was designed and organised by Anouk Brack, Miriam van Groen and Rik Hoevers amongst others, […]

  Review of Design Me a Planet Michel Nguyen The “Design Me a Planet” (“Dessine-moi une planète”) is the name of project founded by Michel Saloff-Coste and which is still in construction. The name comes from the sentence “Dessine-moi un mouton !” (“Draw me a sheep!”) taken from The Little Prince from Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. […]

  Review of 12th Integral University Day Michel Nguyen The On Tuesday 24th May 2011 took place the 12th day of the Parisian Integral University. The theme was “integral societies and politics”. Many speakers were part of the Club of Budapest: Ervin Laszlo himself, Bénédicte Fumey, Carine Dartiguepeyrou and Michel Saloff-Coste. Edgar Morin was on […]

  Foreno Van Der Hulst and Willow Dea Brief Background: In preparation for the Embodying Integral Sustainability seminar, facilitated by Experience Integral in August, Willow Dea and I prepared a 90 minutes session on Profit and Business Model Generation. Foreno: The motivation to do this was the following: During my master’s program in Sustainable Development, […]

Update and Future Regarding Terri O’Fallon’s Research: Her Talk at Seattle, WA, USA, June 14, 2011 Rev. Alia Zara  Aurami-Sou (Nickname “OM”) Dr. Terri O’Fallon, Ph.D., (founder, researcher, faculty, and coach at Pacific Integral) gave an update (compared to her last presentation at Integral Theory Conference 2010) on her research, and some glimpses of where […]

Reaching New Heights in Leadership Education:  Report on the Annual Meeting of the Association of Leadership Educators Eric Kaufman Climb higher. See further. Become a more powerful catalyst for leadership development than ever before. That was the focus of the 21st annual meeting of the Association of Leadership Educators (ALE). In early July, more than […]

South West Integral Group – Integral Alive Day with Gary Hawke  May 22nd 2011 Tessa Martin I feel fortunate to have found a group of people in the South West of the UK who meet every 4 to 6 weeks because we have an interest in “Integral”.  On 22nd May we met in a village […]

2nd Integral Conference in Moscow: “Potential and Prospects of the Integral Approach” Victor Shiryaev The Integral wave is vast and diverse, though it is mostly associated with the Northern American community, as well as some integral salons scattered around the world. While it is true that almost all of the juicy integral stuff is going […]

The Implications and Remarkable Moments of “Russian Davos” Eugene Pustoshkin Action is your manifesting gift—and for every single one mistaking kindness for weakness there’s another letting equanimity fade into hierarchical indifference. So graduate from seeking an exodus already, or striving to disintegrate into nonduality; dance, bleed, tear, laugh—accept the rapture as inevitable and continual rebirth. […]

Integral Without Borders Conference:  Self-as-instrument Integral International Development Center March 25 – 27, 2011 Vancouver, BC   Susan Wright   Integral Without Borders (IWB) is a learning center of the Integral Institute whose purpose is to bring together practitioners and organizations to develop greater clarity, depth, and rigor in their global development efforts. IWB began […]

Integral Leadership in Action (ILiA) Status Report – May/June 2011 Michael McElhenie Integral Leadership in Action is alive and well. We are currently in an exploratory incubation period, which has already generated a number of intriguing ideas that are sure to excite our members and the wider integral community. While we did choose to cancel […]

Leading from Within: Integral Applications to Sustainability in the Niger Delta, Nigeria Oliver Ngodo Tuesday May 17, 2011, His Excellency the High Commissioner of Canada to Nigeria, Chris Cooter, was on a working visit to One Sky offices in Calabar. This visit marked the conclusion of the 10th of the 12 rounds of Intensives designed […]

Blind Spots and Pathologies at the Top of the Spiral—Notes From the Field Robin Reinach and Barbara Larisch Integral New York started spring 2011 with an exploration of the possible flaws, foibles, and shadowy missteps of individuals at 2nd Tier. One question that arose at the beginning of the meet up was about splits that […]

Change for Good: Dynamically Steering towards a Healthy Humanity on a Healthy Planet—5 Reflections on the Authentic Leadership in Action (ALiA) Europe Conference Anouk Brack 1. Change for Good – introduction to ALiA conference theme 2. Practice & Purpose – possible definitions 3. Experience of Embodied Leadership – getting a somatic sense of Embodied Leadership […]

Mexico from an Economic Miracle to Potential Failed State Roberto Bonilla N. The problems we confront are not due to our failures, but to our previous success Don E. Beck, PhD “We do not deserve this country,” a young businessman said to Dr. Don Beck back in April 2007, when we (Dr. Don Beck, Karina […]

“Big Society” Lacks the Leadership Skills to Make It Happen Nick Shannon With much fanfare, the UK prime minister David Cameron recently relaunched the Conservative party’s flagship policy called “Big Society”. Up to now, the UK public have struggled to get their minds around exactly what the “Big Society” means, and the idea has frequently […]

Emerging Integral Approaches at a Large Land Development Project in the Netherlands Machiel Doorn This paper discusses the development and implementation of an integral sustainability framework, inspired by Cradle to Cradle principles, at a large land development project and horticultural show in the Netherlands.  It provides hands-on, real-world accounts and discusses novel monitoring and reporting […]

The Integral Leadership Panel at Fielding Graduate University Sergej van Middendorp This January, at Fielding Graduate University’s winter session, Jerry Snow facilitated the integral leadership panel. In this session, a group of doctoral students and alumni gathered around Russ Volckmann, Clint Fuhs, Aliki Nicolaides, Nancy Wallis, and Anne Acosta to listen to and discuss their […]

Integral Spiritual Experience Barbara Alexander “You know an authentically pleasurable experience by its aftertaste” says my friend Marc Gafni, one of the key architects of Integral Spiritual Experience 2. He and his partners certainly produced an authentically pleasurable experience. More than two months later, the aftertaste, rich and challenging, remains with me. Integral Spiritual Experience, […]

Evolving States and Stages of Consciousness Venita Ramirez, Geoff Fitch and Terri O’Fallon How do people develop? What do the later stages of consciousness look like? Are there methods and practices we can employ to facilitate the process? Robert Kegan (1994), Suzanne Cook-Greuter (2002) and others have contributed a great deal to the field of […]

The Spiral Dance of Spiritual Growth: Navigating the Whitewater of Individuation and Belonging (and a poem by Brianna Schlesinger) Michael Stern When I arrived home in New York City back in September, my number one priority was to find the NYC Integral community and get involved. One of the first places my search led me […]

Robin Reinach On the eve of winter, Integral New York examined empathy and “the miracle of we.” Gilles Herrada led twenty-four Ken Wilber Meet Up participants in exploring questions such as: How important is empathy to Integral theory? How does empathy look through the lens of the four quadrants? And how do we each experience […]

Oliver Ngodo Saturday December 11, 2010, AIDEN held its first International conference in the main auditorium of One Sky, the Canadian Institute of Sustainable Living, in Calabar, the capital city of Nigeria’s South-South state of Cross River. This event elicited free-flowing expressions of joy and fulfillment from participants – the reality of AIDEN is a […]

Matthew Rich During my time working in India in 2010 I became increasingly interested in the work of Sri Aurobindo. I had obviously encountered Aurobindo’s name through my readings of Ken Wilber and thought that I had familiarized with a lot of his key ideas (in retrospect I don’t think that this was the case […]

Vanita Ramirez One of Ken Wilber’s visions is of a world federation led by individuals at later stages of consciousness, individuals who can see with greater complexity and make decisions that will bring greater beauty, truth and goodness to all of us, individuals who support the evolution of consciousness in service to a better future […]

Richard McGuigan The Master of Arts program in Conflict Analysis and Engagement (CAE) at Antioch University Midwest (AUM) is a hybrid distributed learning program designed to engage the whole person and to facilitate the growth of consciousness and complexity of meaning-making among its students. In support of the Master of Arts program, several research studies […]

Anouk Brack & Rik Hoevers Bioneers is an emerging culture of social and scientific innovators who are mimicking nature’s operating instructions to serve human ends while healing nature. For more than twenty years Bioneers have promoted practical environmental solutions and innovative social strategies for restoring Earth’s imperiled ecosystems and healing our human communities. In their journey […]

International Leadership Association Webinar May 26, 2010 Leadership Development Grady McGonagill and Tina Doerffer by Russ Volckmann Consultant McGonagill and Doerffer of the Bertelsmann Foundation presented their report of a study they did of leadership development in the United States. Their presentation was one of the best hours I have spent online for some time. […]

The Gathering by Marc Quinn On March 27th, 2010, a group of 25 people (all but 2 being men) gathered in South London to discuss the state of men in the UK, and what could be done to bring more purpose, power and meaning to their lives. Man Collective was started last November when Alex […]

Reflections on Adult Development through the SRAD Symposium by Ulas Kaplan The 25th Annual Symposium of the Society for Research in Adult Development (SRAD) took place in Philadelphia on March 9 and 10, as a preconference for the Society for Research in Adolescence Biennial Meeting. Driving from Virginia to Philadelphia, I was listening to an […]

Breaking the Investment Barriers for “Plan B” May 12th, 2010 on board the SS Rotterdam by Emil Möller “Plan B is a ‘plan of hope’ because the necessary technology, economic instruments and financial resources are all available -for competing global warming, demography, poverty and restoring ecosystems. The encouraging is that if you manage to do […]

Evolutionary Worldview Rising by George Pór Collective Emergence “I don’t want followers, I want partners” is a rare statement from any spiritual teacher. Yet, those were the exact words I heard Andrew Cohen speaking in his seminar on March 27, in London. The upper floor in the EnlightenNext Centre in Islington was packed with his […]

Asia Business Forum Integral Perspective–The State of Awareness in Southeast Asia by Oliver Ngodo It was a momentous event. From March 22-25, the Asia Business Forum (ABF) meticulously packaged an International Conference on “Branding and Marketing Asia Higher Education” for countries in the South East Asia sub-region. The brainstorming sessions took place at the cozy […]

Review of Wendy Palmer’s Conscious Embodiment Seminar by Anouk Brack “It is not that I stay balanced all the time, I just recover so fast, nobody notices the imbalance.” –paraphrasing O Sensei Morihei Ueshiba, founder of the martial art Aikido I highly recommend Wendy Palmer’s teaching of embodied leadership through conscious embodiment practices that she […]

The Cosmos and Consciousness Group: Can Facebook Be Integral? by Oliver Robinson When the history of the Internet is written at the end of this century, March 2010 will be remembered as a pivotal moment in its very early years. It was in this month that Facebook overtook Google as the most popular website in […]

NeuroLeadership Summit Los Angeles,CA, USA from 27th-29th October 2009 by Galina Knopman I eagerly downloaded the conference schedule, reading the topics and speakers’ bios, and checking off which talks I wanted to attend. I checked my stack of books beside my bed and re-prioritized what to read in preparation for the conference. I got my […]

Five days in the Incubator, March 2010 by Gary Hawke In 2009 at the Integral Leadership in Action conference, I was a panel member on the pre-conference discussion “The Frothy Edge of Integral Leadership”. The consensus of the panel was that we have made the 50,000-foot altitude now we need to begin the work of […]

11th Annual SDi Confab Grapevine, Texas by Dr. Don Beck This will be the first report on the 11th Annual Confab event held at the Embassy Suites Hotel in Grapevine. Texas. The theme this year dealt with the “Bio” in the Gravesian “Bio-Psycho-Social” framework, a focus that puts Spiral Dynamics at the forefront of any […]

Battle For the Economy Institute of Ideas Seminar 16 May 2009, Goodenough College, London by Graham Mummery In the Great Hall of Goodenough College, London, its founder looks down on the proceedings. I am familiar with his name from induction courses during my, now defunct, banking career. He was Barclays Bank’s chairman in the 1920’s. […]

The Purpose of The Model of Personal Development and Global Change by James Blacker This article relates to The Papillon Human Potential Model of Personal Development and Global Change, a teaching presentation that we present from the homepage of our multi-website Integral Wisdom Movement, Whole Life Whole World (.com). For information, Papillon Human Potential morphed […]

Terry Patten & Deborah Boyar at One Spirit Learning Alliance by Lynne Feldman and Joanne Rubin While a blizzard raged to our south, it was cold and clear outside in New York City. Inside the airy room at One Spirit Learning Alliance about 40 people had gathered to welcome Terry and Deborah present on Embodied […]

Karma and the Quadrants: Reflections on a Presentation to iNYC by Jordan Schachter I have been attempting to share for this publication a summary of my PowerPoint presentation. The presentation is designed to move Integral people beyond Yellow to Turquoise. The challenge is that Yellow is about rational. My re-telling of Turquoise is post-rational. My […]

Five days in the Incubator: Integral Boulder March 2010, by Gary Hawke In 2009 at the Integral Leadership in Action conference, I was a panel member on the pre-conference discussion “The Frothy Edge of Integral Leadership”. The consensus of the panel was that we have made the 50,000-foot altitude now we need to begin the […]

Integral Leadership in Action Conference – 2009 by David McCallum Five years ago, back in February/March 2004, I attended the first Integral Leadership seminar that Integral Institute (yes, Institute—it was that long ago) offered. It was full of growth, development, community, exploration and a sense of creating a structure for something that we didn’t want […]

Integral Leadership in Action by Gary Hawke The 4th Integral Leadership in Action (ILiA) conference took place from October 15th-18th at The Crossings in Austin, Texas. Keeping connected to the inquiry of “What is Integral Leadership?” ILiA took the bold step to focus this conference on consciously leading and living through turbulence and transformation. The […]

Reflections from Prague: The International Leadership Association’s 11th Annual Conference by Jonathan Reams “Leadership for Transformation” was the theme, and the setting was just right – Prague on the eve of the 20th anniversary of the Velvet Revolution. Concerns that holding the conference away from the US, with the current economic constraints possibly restricting attendance proved […]

Iceland National Assembly by Bjarni S. Jonsson A Short History from a Personal Perspective Every member of the organizing group, of the National Assembly, called the Anthill, has their own story to tell prior to the actual foundation of the group, since they had all been working one way or another towards some sort of […]

Integral University in Paris Michel Nguyen So far, the Integral University (“Université Intégrale” in French) in Paris refers to a cycle of conferences organized by the French chapter of the Club of Budapest, based on an idea put forward by Michel Saloff-Coste. It is not an institute as such, as it is still in its […]

“Evoking Beauty—Music in Action” Transformative Workshops with Jessica Roemischer by Jessica Roemischer Over the past twenty-eight years, I have taught piano to hundreds of students. And yet, what probably comes to mind when you think of “piano lessons,” has little to do with what happens for people when they sit with me at the keyboard. […]

The ILA Experience by Hadassah Weiner-Friedman It all started two semesters ago at the Union Institute and University residency meeting in Cincinnati, Ohio when Dr. Bernice Ledbetter made the announcement of the November 2009 conference for the ILA (International Leadership Association) meeting in Prague, Czech Republic. At that point she got my full attention and […]

Authentic Leadership in Action-Europe Conference January 10-16, 2010, Elspeet, Netherlands by Emil Moller I’d like to start this review with the notion of courage and trust. The reason is that the morning I left the venue for my wife and children, there was an option to take the 10 am shuttle service and stay around […]

Integral Spiritual Experience Year 1: A Part-Whole Experience of a Journey into Unique Self by Gayle Karen Young Five hundred people gathered in Asilomar, California over New Year’s Eve for the first ever “Integral Spiritual Experience” (ISE). The ISE experience was a banquet of tasting from various sources of deep devotion, including one’s own, the experience […]

The Renaissance2: Great Shift Gathering And A Political Op-Ed Piece Too Good Not to Publish (with apologies to Terry for not asking permission—Russ) by Terry Patten On October 22th to 26th, 2009 over 70 participants from 20 countries and 4 continents gathered for the Renaissance2 “Great Shift Gathering: Catalyzing the Second Renaissance” at Chateau La Tour […]

Gary Hawke The 4th Integral Leadership in Action (ILiA) conference took place from October 15th – 18th at The Crossings in Austin, Texas. Keeping connected to the inquiry of “What is Integral Leadership?” ILiA took the bold step to focus this conference on consciously leading and living through turbulence and transformation. The Crossings was a […]

Terri O’Fallon The day was a bit misty, but despite the rain sixteen interested developmentalists from around the world rang the doorbell next to Bill Torbert’s front door on October 3rd, 2009 to engage in a dialogue on developmental theory and its measurement. This meeting was sparked by an article in the Integral Review, “Models, Metrics, […]

Emil Möller “Integral Leadership for Sustainability” held 4-9 Aug 2009 in the Netherlands. From the ExperienceIntegral website: Are you awake? Are you on a mission? Do you have a big ego and an even bigger heart? Are you an emerging leader? You are an emerging leader if you are striving to offer your best to […]

[This is the first time that Integral Leadership Review has published something that had previously been published elsewhere, in this case as a blog. Ichak Adizes is the author of Corporate Life Cycles. This seems to be a useful and timely set of reflections. Note that at the end of the interview there is a free offer […]

Raquel Torrent Integral Evolution is the title of a new book that has been published in Spanish by Kairós in October 2009 in Spain, Mexico, Argentina and Chile. It will be presented at the VII Integral Conference in Barcelona where Joanna Hunt, and Laura Divine will be lecturing about their well known, useful and well […]

Since January 2007 when formally we started the Integral Mexico Project, we focused on identify key leaders both in government and Mexican NGO’s. What we have found in the case of government leaders, is their focus in the next election, rather in the next generation (at least!). On the other hand, the NGO’s leaders are […]

The Centre for Human Emergence UK (CHE-UK) was born on 26 June 2009 in a basement room of the Holiday Inn, Oxford Circus, London. It was formally launched the next day at the ‘Regent’s Summit on the Future of the UK’, a 2-day event (27-28 June) at Regent’s College. This is the story of that […]

In June the European Leadership Academy invited guests, partners and friends to its first Open Day. This is a report from Anja Schmidt, Head of Marketing and Customer Services at the European Leadership Academy. What is the European Leadership Academy? It is “A place for leadership. A place where people are given the opportunity to […]

In early November 2008 at a retreat center just outside Austin, Texas, a group of just over one hundred executives, business owners, consultants and academics answered John Mackey’s invitation to talk about serving the world through the vehicle of business. The event was called the Catalyzing Conscious Capitalism (C3) conference, and was the first public […]

The EOS Alliance (www.eosalliance.org) hosted an introduction to Integral Sustainability on February 28, 2009. The course was co-led by Alan Seid, Director of Training and Lead Consultant for Cascadia Training & Mediation (www.cascadiatraining.com), and Sandra Poulson, Principal at RealTrust Consulting (www.realtrust.us), and Senior Organization Effectiveness Consultant, Region 10 of the US Environmental Protection Agency. Mr. […]

There is no way we could present a more powerful item for the Notes from the Field section than this presentation Don Beck announced to some list serves. To listen (and watch slides) from a presentation by Peter Merry on some pretty amazing activities going on in Europe, go here: http://www.petermerry.org/Peter_Merry/Film/Entries/2009/3/7_Meshworking_for_MDG5.html And, by the way, Peter Merry’s book, Evolutionary […]

The dialogue was constructed around a series questions to explore the existence and potential nature of Integral Politics. This summary only attempts to cover those points raised in the dialogue not the ensuing discussion. These notes are an effort to capture the flavour of the contributions of the invited speakers during the course of the […]

 The Center for Leadership, Innovation and Change (CLIC) of the Indian School of Business in Hyderabad, India, organized a three day conference between October 23-26, 2008. It was very well attended—150 participants, 20 sponsored delegates and about 30 volunteers and ISB community members. The conference was supported by State Bank of India (Diamond Sponsor), Andhra […]

The International Leadership Association (ILA) 10th anniversary conference was held in Los Angeles, California, United States of America, on November 12-15th 2008. “Global Leadership: Portraits of the Past, Visions for the Future” was the topic of this conference with 900+ participants and 100+ simultaneous sessions facilitated by presenters from all around the world. Due to […]

Since this is my first report of integral news from France, I’ll make this more of a year’s summary of 2008 happenings. In future postings, I’ll check in with each issue of Integral Leadership Review. Perhaps the most significant literary event last year was the March publication of Ken Wilber’s The Integral Vision, by the psychology division […]

The London Integral Circle hosted Alan Watkins to speak at our November salon on the topic of “Integral Neuroscience”. Alan holds a medical degree from the University of London, as well as a Ph.D. in immunology and an undergraduate degree in psychology. He is an Honorary Senior Lecturer in Neuroscience and Psychological Medicine at Imperial […]

Introduction For a number of years, Dr Don Beck has been coming to the Netherlands, and every time he has said that the Hague will host the next generation of the United Nations. I guess I had heard him say it so many times, that when the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs put out a […]

The third Integral Leadership in Action (ILiA) Collaborative, in partnership with Boulder Integral, took place from October 9-12th in Boulder, Colorado. Continuing to explore the line of inquiry first introduced in 2004 at the Integral Leadership Seminar, “What is Integral Leadership in Action?” ILiA 3’s inquiry was flavored by attention to three classic orienting values: […]

Generously hosted by Indra in her home, it was literally full to the rafters at the London integral Circle’s October meeting as people sat on the staircase that leads to the roof. Joanne Hunt and Laura Devine, the founders of Integral Coaching®, the only approach to coaching that has been accredited by the Integral Institute, […]

The Integrative Leadership Conference was held at the Center for Integrative Leadership, University of Minnesota, on October 5th to 7th 2008. This conference focused on leadership by leading across boundaries for the common good. The Center of Integrative Leadership seeks to examine and advance a new vision for a cross-sector leadership, integrative leadership. The vision […]

There’s a tribe from Africa that makes a point of welcoming people. For instance, if one of them met you outside at a gathering, they would welcome you. If they met you inside the gathering again, even though you had only crossed paths moments before, they welcome you anew out of a belief that people […]

The process of becoming a leader is much the same as the process of becoming an integrated human being. For the leader, as for any integrated person, life itself is the career. Discussing the process in terms of ‘leaders’ is merely a way of making it concrete. ~Warren Bennis Understanding this quote means having a […]

The First Exercise You are either a howler, or a growler. Put differently, in the course of satisfying your primal survival needs—getting food and shelter or fighting off predators—you might either howl or growl. Put even differently, during the BEIGE stage of human emergence, when only the earliest manifestations of human consciousness and fundamental tools […]

At the beginning of this year Renaissance2 was just a very exciting vision amongst a small group of people. Six months later this vision is starting to become reality, and our progress is now accelerating as we connect with more and more people inspired by the possibilities. What follows is a brief update on our […]

Introduction: For many involved this conference was not only an eagerly anticipated meeting of minds, but a gathering of kindred Spirits – a family reunion – nourishing for the soul. The Integral Theory Conference was a refreshing reminder of why we make regular travel to integral gatherings and highlights the importance of sharing how we each […]

As I sit here, writing and editing this piece for the Integral Leadership Review, I’m also reflecting on the 3.5 decades I’ve lived with and worked within the theory and framework, designed by Clare Graves, to understand individual, organizational and cultural human development. Three and a half decades ago, I didn’t know it would be known […]

I would suggest that the Integral Theory Conference, held at JFK University in August 2008 was an unqualified success. Sean Esjborn- Hargensand Mark Foreman were the organizers with a whole lot of help from others. In order to provide you with a sense of the conference I asked Ed Kelly of Ireland, Australia and currently […]

In 2003 Dr. Don Beck and I were at Los Pinos (the Mexican White House); a couple of friends of mine “opened the doors”. We were in a huge conference room with more than 50 important people who run our country’s destiny every day. Don was telling them how we plant seeds with these (SDi) […]

May 12-14th saw the first certification training in Europe for Bob Anderson’s Leadership Circle (TLC –http://www.theleadershipcircle.com/index.html). Paul Matthews and his wife Sara are taking on the challenge of opening up a franchise for the UK as TLC begins to expand worldwide. (There are also franchises opening in Australia and South Africa). This will bring access […]

What is CLIC? CLIC is an acronym for Centre for Leadership, Innovation and Change management. It is the fifth centre of excellence in the highly rated Indian School of Business, Hyderabad, India and started in 2008. It’s purpose is developing global leaders based on an integral approach—marrying lessons from wisdom traditions with management and scientific […]

SubSaharan Africa Bureau Chief, Integral Leadership Review “When you reach the Hagia Sofia, go towards the Blue Mosque and take a left – there we will be.” After a long journey from Freetown, Sierra Leone to Istanbul, Turkey, through Casablanca, Morocco, I arrived in Istanbul and fumbled across this new place to find my little […]

“The FBI will be celebrating its 100th anniversary this year and I would have to say that the interview with Saddam Hussein is one of the top accomplishments in our agency’s history.” ~FBI Assistant Director Joe Persichini This statement was made to the CBS news program 60 minutes about the work of one George Piro, a young […]

Integral Coaching Canada Inc., currently the only coaching training program officially partnered by Integral Institute, offered their first US training in Washington DC this May. I attended the five day seminar that kicks off Module 1: Foundation and Apprenticeship and was instantly impressed with this embodied, nuts and bolts application of AQAL theory to the […]

Steve McIntosh is the CEO and created Now & Zen’s brand aesthetic by combining the harmonic proportions of sacred geometry with motifs from traditional Japanese culture. This has resulted in product designs that have a timeless, universal appeal. Prior to the incorporation of Now & Zen, Inc. in 1995, Steve was Director of Corporate Development and […]

An in-depth follow-up on Helen Tichen Beeth’s review in November http://integralleadershipreview.com/archives/2007_11/2007-11-notes-beeth-helen.html Introduction I was asked to report on this event I attended in the process of my internship—researching what it is that CHE the Netherlands actually does. I think CHE offers society invaluable insights, tools and practices that will become the transformational drivers of the […]

On December 27, 1657, a small group of 30 Dutch immigrants to the “New World” signed what was known as the Flushing Remonstrance, a manifesto declaring, “no one shall be persecuted because of his religion.” Further, “if any said persons (meaning the Quakers who were quite disruptive at the time) come in love unto us […]

This piece draws on blog entries from the last couple of years, describing the journey I have been making with the Center for Human Emergence as we look to trigger the transformation into integral evolutionary consciousness, in the Netherlands, for the world. March 31st, 2006 – Klaar om te Wenden 900 people show up for […]

Tryggare och Mänskligare Göteborg—A safer and more humane Göteborg—is an innovative approach to urban crime prevention and safety promotion. The authorities in the city of Göteborg established a council for this project in 2001, designed to govern and support the activities of the secretariat, an office of seven staff members with different types of expertise. […]

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Londonintegralcircle/ Original Introduction: **A History of Radical Organisations – through the lenses of the AQAL model** “The session’s goal is to introduce Organisational Design as a specific discipline for looking at the structures that define our working lives. Ken Wilber’s’All Quadrants, All Levels’ map, including the dynamics of social holons, will provide the structure of […]

Hosted by the Dutch chapter of the Center for Human Emergence (CHE), organised by Peter Merry, Anita Floris and Anne-Marie Voorhoeve, with participants from the Netherlands, Belgium, Iceland, Israel, the UK, USA, and Switzerland. We were sorry that our spiritual father, Don Beck, was prevented from attending by a vicious bout of flu. But we […]

In looking forward into the 21st Century there is no doubt that changing values on issues such as the environment and global warming, the issue of providing clean energy and global terrorism are providing very different responses around the globe. In the developed OECD countries there is a rapidly emerging awareness of the urgency to […]

In September 2007, something amazing took place in Sierra Leone. What was this amazing thing? The elections! It was amazing to witness communities throughout the nation express their wishes through the democratic process. People chose to act on their future through votes as opposed to acting with the usual chaos which African nations have been […]

The Leadership Studies program (one of the oldest Leadership programs in the nation) is on the move! Two years ago, the president at the University of San Diego (USD) agreed with School of Education Dean Paula Cordeiro that the name “School of Education” did not accurately represent the totality of the work being accomplished across […]

This presentation is focused on integral education. While the content of Jonathan’s report may be focused on education in the classroom andoutside of it, for children and adults, I see in it challenges to leadership education and leadership development. Jonathan, himself, teaches at the university level, so this connection seems obvious. But how can these ideas and […]

The following reports was shared by Elza in July 2007. To augment this presentation we talked with Elza in August. A report of this conversation appears below the report. On June 21st, 2007, Dr. Beck and I spoke at the Values-Caucus at the United Nations to a standing room only conference hall. Representatives of various […]

This is an unusual piece to be included in the Integral Leadership Review. But when I read it, I couldn’t resist sharing it with you. It is so easy to forget that leadership shows up in many places, not just the corporation or other organization. It shows up in communities of all types all over […]

  Typically, one would reach into the heart of a group to find its purpose. What if the heart itself is its purpose? For Integral Leadership in Action (ILiA) 2007 attendees, the heart is the thread that connects us to each other and to our shared mission of creating a better world. In March, we […]

  It was an amazing experience to be able to see Dr. Don Beck during his trip to Mexico. In the beginning we weren’t sure what kind of an event the four precious days that we had with him would be. First, we had the idea to organize two events, one for a select group of people […]

  The Society for Organizational Learning (SOL) held a Forum on Business Innovation for Sustainability in Atlanta at the end of March 2007. The event was presented by SOL’s Sustainability Consortium (SSC). The Sustainability Consortium was founded in 1999 by ten companies in response to the question, “How can we accelerate learning for Sustainability?” This […]

  The following article was written in response to a conference call in January 2007 concerning the Integral Psychograph with Integral Institute’s David Zeitler, and organised by Joanne Rubin of the Integral Psychology Affinity Group. While I have done my best to represent the material from the call when used, it does not necessarily represent […]

Introduction The 1st European Integral Leadership Summit was held in London over the weekend of 18 to 20 October, 2002. It was put on by Inspiral World in conjunction with a number of sponsors including the Global Values Network (GVN). As part of the Leadership Summit the GVN ran a specialized GVM WorldSCAN Integral Leadership […]

Integral Publishers Partner and Chief of Acquisitions and Editorial, Jeannie Carlisle interviews Keith Witt about his latest work, Jeannie: Thanks for joining us today, Keith. It’s always such a pleasure to speak with you about your work. You are one of the most passionate and joyful authors we have the privileged to publish. Could you […]

ILR’s Jeannie Carlisle interviews Marilyn Hamilton, author of the new work, Integral City Inquiry & Action: Designing Impact for the Human Hive JC: Hello Marilyn, and welcome! In a few sentences, please describe the premise of this important new book for our readers. MH: Integral City Inquiry & Action: Designing Impact for the Human Hive […]

Jeffrey Pfeffer (2015). Leadership BS: Fixing Workplaces and Careers One Truth at a Time. New York: Harper Business. In the year 2000, Chris Argyris introduced the new century with his publication of Flawed Advice and the Management Trap: How Managers Can Know When They’re Getting Good Advice and When They’re Not. In this exceptional book […]

Robin has brilliantly woven his ThriveAbility model into a field manual for executives, policy makers and change agents in service of creating a better world for future generations. Earth’s 7.3 billion citizens are currently consuming 1.6 times its available resources. This rate is clearly not sustainable, and trends indicate it will continue to rise. We […]

John Brockman, Ed. This Idea Must Die. New York: Harper, 2015. This is a most unusual book to be included in Integral Leadership Review. But it is a significant contribution to integral understanding. It is a book of very short entries by scholars and other intellectuals on ideas that are current in the various sciences, […]

In 2007 Inteegral Leadership review featured a couple of articles about holacracy (http://integralleadershipreview.com/5328-feature-article-organization-at-the-leading-edge-introducing-holacracy-evolving-organization/ ; http://integralleadershipreview.com/5333-feature-article-holacracy-in-action-theory-to-practice/), Brian Robertson’s innovative organizational approach in the software company he built and his subsequent entrepreneurial activity.

Donald Sull and Kathleen M. Eisenhardt. Simple Rules: How to Thrive in a Complex World. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2015.   The foundational theme of this book: “Meeting complexity with complexity can create more confusion than it resolves.” Stuff interacts in a variety of ways. Complex approaches can overwhelm us. Simple Rules asks, what alternative […]

Jennifer Garvey Berger and Keith Johnston. Simple Habits for Complex Times: Powerful Practices for Leaders. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 2015. Here is a book that seeks to confront our historic, cultural approach to leadership and nudge leading toward addressing the more rapidly changing and complex organizational and contextual landscape. Their strategy is to […]

Mauk Pieper. Humanity’s Second Shock and Your Unique Self: Integral Leadership & Spirituality. Lage Vuursche, The Netherlands: Venwoude, Press, 2014. Essentially, we have here a highly readable and understandable presentation of our developmental relationship to self and the universe that is built on the work of Ken Wilber and Marc Gafni, among others. It is […]

Scott K. Edinger and Laurie Sain. The Hidden Leader: Discover and Develop Greatness within Your Company, Foreword by James M. Kouzes and Barry Z. Posner. New York: Amacom, 2015. I sometimes find that I have snobbish tendencies. One way they come out is in relation to books published by AMACOM. Most of what I have […]

“[E]very time humanity has shifted to a new stage, it has invented a new way to collaborate, a new organizational model” (Laloux, 2014, Kindle Locations 385-386). The above quote is the premise of Frederic Laloux’s Reinventing Organizations. As he points out in the book, data in this area is as yet pretty slim. That being said, […]

In a recent online posting –(http://www.salon.com/2014/10/26/the_dangerous_american_myth_of_corporate_spirituality/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=socialflow) – Shawn Van Valkenburgh offers “The dangerous American myth of corporate spirituality: How invocations of “karma” and Zen are being used to justify deeply unequal systems of power,” (accessed 10/27/14). There he wonders about the spiritual materialism of adoptions of Buddhist meditation and philosophy (note The Secret). He sites […]

Alexander Schieffer and Ronnie Lessem.  Integral Development. Burlington, VT: Gower Publishing, 2014. Schieffer and Lessem introduce a ground-breaking development framework and process to address the most burning issues that humanity faces. While conventional top-down, outside-in development has reached a cul-de-sac, a new, integral form of development is emerging around the world. Integral Development uniquely articulates […]

Trompenaars, Fons and Ed Voerman. Servant Leadership Across Cultures – Harnessing the Strength of the World’s Most Powerful Management Philosophy. Infinite Ideas Ltd, Oxford, UK:2009. 190 pp. David C. Wigglesworth A quotation on the back cover of this book from Herman Whijffels of the World Bank, Washington,DC and Director of the Board for the Greenleaf […]

Giannantonion, Christina M. and Aky E. Hurley-Hanson (Eds). Extreme Leadership – Leaders, Teams and Situations Outside the Norm. Edward Elgar: Cheltenham, UK-Northampton, MA, USA. 2013. David C. Wigglesworth This is a collection of articles, as the title implies, that focus on “extreme leadership” – extreme   from obviously very different definitions since the leaders runs the […]

Georg Vielmetter and Yvonne Sell. Leadership 2030: The Six Megatrends You Need to Understand to Lead Your Company into the Future. AMACOM: New York, 244 pp. David C. Wigglesworth This is a two part book. The first part addresses the six megatrends that they see the world is facing and the place of leadership in […]

Bunzi, John M. GLOBAL DOMESTIC POLITICS: A Citizen’s Guide to Running a Diverse Planet. London: International Simultaneous Policy Organisation,  2013 113pp. This is a serious book about the problems of our world and the utilization of domestic politics to make running it more effective. The author, the founder of SIMPOL, the international simultaneous policy organization, […]

Ardi, Dana. The Fall of the Alphas: The New Beta way to Connect, Collaborate, Influence – and Lead.  NY: St. Martin’s Press, 2013 Carol Burbank Consultant Dana Ardi wants to change the world, one company at a time. She calls herself a “corporate anthropologist,” studying the culture of corporations, “how they grow and develop, and […]

Hammerich, Kai and Richard D. Lewis Fish Can’t See Water: How National Cultures can Make or Break Your Corporate Strategy. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Chichester, UK 297pp. . David C. Wigglesworth This book seems to be an amalgam in which the authors have great difficulty in making the parts stick together. The parts that […]

E.S. Wibbeke and Sarah McArthur. Global Business Leadership (2nd Edition). NY: Routledge, 2014. With a foreword by Warren Bennis, this second edition of Global Business Leadership offers a thoughtful look at intercultural leadership in a “flat world,” and the imperative of informed and culturally sensitive leadership responsive to the dynamics of globalization. The authors propose […]

Lois Ruskadai Melina, Gloria J. Burgess, Lena Lid Falkman, and Antonio Marturano, eds. The Embodiment of Leadership:A Volume in the International Leadership Association Series, Building Leadership Bridges. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2013. One of the Editors, Antonio Marturano, is the Integral Leadership Review Associate Editor and Bureau Chief for Italy. He also guest edited the special […]

Greg Park, Collaborative Wisdom: From Pervasive Logic to Effective Operational Leadership. Burlington, VT: Gower, 2013. It seems relatively rare to come across a truly thoughtful work on operational leadership. It seems that most writers romanticize leadership as something that occurs at the top of a team, an organization, a company, a country, any human system. […]

John P. Forman and Laurel A. Ross. Albany, NY: Excelsior Editions, SUNY, 2013. If you are looking for an introductory text that you can include in an undergraduate or Master’s course on leadership, here it is. In addition to laying out the elements of the Wilberian integral model in relation to leadership, the authors have […]

Richard Katz and Stephen Murphy-Shigematsu, Eds. Synergy, Healing, and Empowerment: Insights from Cultural Diversity. Calgary: Brush Education, 2012. It was the cultural diversity part that drew me to this book. Richard Katz is a scholar who has done research in multiple cultures, while Stephen Murphy-Shigematsu is born of and has varied life experiences in at […]

Therese Rowley. Mapping a New Reality: Discovering intuitive intelligence. Author, 2012. Mark Harman As one reads the book, Mapping a New Reality by Dr. Rowley, it is quickly observed that she strives to encourage the reader to explore and find the patterns and interconnectedness among their personal experiences. Conceptually, the experience is similar to constructing […]

Robert E. Kaplan and Robert B. Kaiser. Fear Your Strengths. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler, 2013. This 100-page volume proposes that overusing our strengths gets us in trouble in relationships and leader roles. It also promotes the authors’ Leadership Versatility Index assessment. Developing individuals for leader roles is not so much about addressing weaknesses as it is […]

David K. Hurst. The New Ecology of Leadership: Business Mastery in a Chaotic World. New York: Columbia Business School Publishing, 2012. David Hurst gets it. Apparently not directly influenced by integral theory or Spiral Dynamics, David Hurst gets the importance of context. After all, that is a core contribution of integral theory – identifying the […]

Ian I. Mitroff and Donna D. Mitroff. Fables and the Art of Leadership: Applying the Wisdom of Mister Rogers to the Workplace. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012. When I see a book written by Ian Mitroff I pay attention. The father of Crisis Management, co-author of Spiritual Guide to Corporate America, critic of the dominance […]

Hilarie Owen, Ed. New Thinking on Leadership: A Global Perspective. Philadelphia: KoganPage, 2012. In this small volume there are contributions from leadership scholars in many parts of the world. There is, indeed, a global perspective to be gained from these chapters, ranging from leadership in schools in China to collaborative approaches to leadership in Latin […]

Mike R. Jay, et al. @F-L-O-W, Find, Design, Use Talent to Emerge Happiness & Success in a Post-Modern World. NP: @F-L-O-W Publishing, 2012. Barbara N. Brown In his new book, @F-L-O-W, Find, Design, Use Talent to Emerge Happiness & Success in a Post-Modern World, Mike R Jay, an executive coach for 25 years, will start […]

Patricia Leavy. Essentials of Transdisciplinary Research: Using Problem-Centered Methodologies. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press, 2011. There has been a fair amount written about transdisciplinarity in the pages of Integral Leadership Review, but none of it as practical for scholars, innovators and researchers as this guide to the methodologies. Keep in mind that transdisciplinary is about […]

Richard J. Davidson and Sharon Begley. The Emotional Life of your Brain. New York, New York: Hudson Street Press, 2012. Mark Harman, M.D. Current Psychology defines and explains one’s reactions and behaviors to their environment through statistical derivation of observed behavioral patterns. While predictable 70% of the time, these models fall short of an encompassing […]

First Lady Michelle Obama Challenges America’s CEOs To Be Bold in Finding Ways to Hire Veterans http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2013/03/13/first-lady-michelle-obama-challenges-americas-ceos-be-bold-finding-ways-hire-veteran?utm_source=031413&utm_medium=photo&utm_campaign=daily From a posting by Colleen Curtis March 13, 2013 This issue has an unusual political presence, given the interviews with Terry Patten and Diane Krauthamer, Don Beck and Alfonso Monruori’s columns. Now this Leadership Emerging piece on Michelle […]

Reams, J., & Caspari, A. (2012). Integral leadership: Generating space for emergence through quality of presence. Wirtschaftspsychologie, 14(3), 34-45. Abstract: This article outlines a view of integral leadership as integrity with a quality of presence that opens spaces for what wants to emerge. A focus is on describing Heifetz’s notion of adaptive leadership as creating […]

Douglas Board. Choosing Leaders and Choosing to Lead: Science, Politics and Intuition in Executive Selection. Burlington, VT: Gower Publishing Company, 2012. It is not often I pick up a book with a Foreword by a baroness, Baroness Prashar of Runnymede. This baroness earned her title by serving as the First Civil Service Commissioner in the […]

John Renesch. The Great Growing Up: Being Responsible for Humanity’s Future. Prescott, AZ: HOHM Press, 2012. John Renesch states that he coined the term conscious leadership in the early 1990s. Certainly, the blurbs supporting this book suggest that he has been long considered a positive force for development and change. For example, Patricia Aburdene, author […]

Steven Snyder. Leadership and the Art of Struggle: How Great Leaders Grow through Challenge and Adversity. San Francisco: Barrett-Koehler Publishers, 2012. With some reservations this book is an excellent approach to developing individuals for leader roles. First, the Foreword by Bill George is worth reading. In it you can see more of this self-reflective individual’s […]

Lina M. Echeverria. Idea Agent: Leadership That Liberates Creativity and Accelerates Innovation. New York: American Management Association, 2013. I need to be up front about something before commenting on this book. It was recommended to me by two friends of mine who indicated the author was a friend of theirs. I did not anticipate that […]

Antonio Marturano, Editorial, Leadership, 2012 8: 205. http://lea.sagepub.com/content/8/3/205.citation Antonio Marturano, ILR Bureau Chief for Italy and guest editor of this special issue, was the Editor of the August 2012 issue of Leadership, one of the leading academic journals on the subject. The material in this journal provides more in depth treatments of subjects also found […]

Philip Weiss.   Hyperthinking: Creating a New Mindset for the Age of Networks. Burlington, VT: Gower Publishing, 2012. In the world of integral leadership we read a lot about developing worldviews, values, consciousness and the like. Often cognitive development is assumed. In this small volume we find a presentation of an approach to thinking this is […]

Bob Vanourek and Gregg Vanourek. Triple Crown Leadership: Building Excellent, Ethical, and Enduring Organizations. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2012. Drawing from interviews with CEOs of sixty-one major corporations and organizations, this former CEO (Bob) and academic/entrepreneur (Gregg) have distilled five practices to generate excellent, ethical and enduring (the triple crown) organizations. These are: • Head and […]

Stephen Brookes and Keith Grint, Eds. The New Public Leadership Challenge. Basingstoke, England: Palgrave MacMillan, 2010. The English/British Civil Service is a venerable institution that has left its imprint around the world, particularly where there was British colonial rule. In the intervening years there have been many changes in those cultures where it was established: […]

Thomas E. Cronin and Michael A. Genovese. Leadership Matters: Unleashing the Power of Paradox. Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers, 2012. This book has got to be good; it has received thumbs up from several of the giants of leadership theory: Bennis, Burns, O’Toole, etc. Basically the message is that leaders are responsible for getting things done […]

Barbara Maria Stafford, ed. Bridging the Humanities-Neuroscience Divide: A Field Guide to a New Meta-Field. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011. When I saw the title of this book on the Internet, I was sure this was something important for me to read. I was not mistaken. Here is an extraordinary scholarly contribution to the […]

Ryan Caradonna and Jake Caines. Debunking the Leadership Myth: The Story of Conscious Leadership. Pennsylvania: 5I’s Publishing, 2012. If you are in the leadership industry or just interested in the evolution of our practicing, developing and thinking about leadership, this will be an interesting book for you. It begins, This book is written for leaders […]

Howard J. Leonhardt  http://www.calstockexchange.com/top-10-takeaways-from-conscious-capitalism-summit/ Posted on October 20, 2012 October 15th, 2012 – Santa Monica, CA – Last week I had the honor of being a California Delegate to the Conscious Capitalism Summit in Austin, Texas. What an amazing great experience! I had a chance to meet so many like minded people that believe that […]

Don Benson Mats Alvesson and Andre Spicer (2011). Metaphors We Lead By: Understanding Leadership in the Real World. New York: Routledge. My friend cares a lot about leadership. And therefore so do I. The trouble is that there seems to be more written about leadership than I can make sense of. The deconstruction of leadership […]

Andy Stefanovich (2011). Look @ More: A Proven Approach to Innovation, Growth, and Change. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. In many ways the title of this book is at the heart of the integral, meta and transdisciplinary approaches to comprehending any occurance, personal, interpersonal, organizational, etc. Here Andy Stefanovich shares what he has been bringing to organizations […]

Joann Danelo Barbour, Gloria J. Burgess, Lena Lid Falkman, Robert M. McManus,  Eds. (2012). Leading in Complex Worlds, A Volume in the International Leadership Association Series, Building Leadership Bridges. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Every year the International Leadership Association produces a book in their Building Leadership Bridges series. This volume sought contributions that were “multiperspetive in […]

Carol S. Pearson, Ed., (2012). The Transforming Leader: New Approaches to Leadership for the Twenty-First Century. San Francisco: Barrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc. This is a book I had great hope for when I first learned of it. First, it was published by my favorite publisher of popular works on leadership and development. Second, it was edited […]

Here are three books written by three people who are linked in their work and/or their writing, all related to the subject of evolution. Phipps was editor of What is Enlightenment, later EnlightenmentNext, publications sposored by Andrew Cohen and in which Cohen’s work and dialogues with Ken Wilber were featured. Phipps and McIntosh reference each […]

Ginny Whitelaw (2012). The Zen Leader: 10 Ways to go From Barely Managing to Leading Fearlessly. Pompton Plains, NJ: Career Press. Ginny Whitelaw is a leadership expert and roshi (Zen master). She is the author of The Zen Leader and founder of the Institute for Zen Leadership. She has taught and coached in global leadership […]

Liz Wiseman and Greg McKeown. Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter. New York: HarperCollins, 2012. Renee Snow The opening quote of Multipliers summarizes the grand tour theory that those who are Multipliers make those they encounter feel like the smartest people in the room, while Diminishers suck the brainpower out of others by […]

Nick Petrie (December 2011). Future Trends in Leadership Development: A White Paper. Greensborough, North Carolina: Center for Creative Leadership.   Many of the ideas associated with integral leadership are beginning to show up in the mainstream business and organizational literature. Note, for example, the leader-follower-context model of Barbara Kellerman discussed in Russ Volckmann’s interview with […]

Jennifer Garvey Berger. Changing on the Job: Developing Leaders for a Complex World. Stanford, CA: Stanford Business Books, 2012. It is unusual to find an integrally informed author showing up in a university press, aside from SUNY and their integral series. Berger lives in a small seaside village in New Zealand, but her background is […]

Marjolein Klips-Wiersma and Lani Morris. The Map of Meaning: A Guide to Sustaining Our Humanity in the World of Work. Sheffield, UK: Greenleaf Publications, 2011. This book is exactly the kind of thing we should be looking forward to as a result of our efforts to meet the complexity facing us head on and in […]

Micha Popper. Fact and Fantasy About Leadership. Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar, 2012. Here is a book aligned with some of the thinking of folks like Barbara Kellerman and others who see the leader-follower relationship as essential to understanding either. The author states, [W]e can visualize leadership as fire — a metaphor borrowed from the researchers […]

Susan Cain. Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking. New York: Crown Publishing, 2012. Okay, I’m an introvert. Or am I? Am I centered in a Green or an Individualist level of development. Am I an Enneagram 7? So many categories. So many boxes. So many ways of practicing a […]

Richard Barrett. The New Leadership Paradigm: Leading Self, Leading Others, Leading an Organization, Leading in Society. The Values Center, 2010. If you are truly interested in adult development and/or integral leadership and organizations, the odds are you have already heard about this book, although it is self-published. Barrett is a highly respected consultant who has […]

The Language of Leadership: A Departure I am taking something of a departure from my normal practice of providing highlights of a series of books related to the study and practice of leadership. I have found one chapter in one book to be so meaningful to me that I want to share it with you […]

  [These brief explorations of books, articles and other content are intended to provide a flavor for their contents and an opportunity for me to seek out elements that are tributaries to the integral, developmental, transdisciplinary ocean of thought that I have being critical to our futures. I ask forgiveness if any of my comments […]

  Steven Denning. The Leader’s Guide to Storytelling: Mastering the Art and Discipline of Business Narrative, Revised and Updated. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2011. I consider the book to be a classic and welcome Denning’s update. Essentially he is offering guidance in oral communication. His suggestions mainly apply to using stories or business narrative in performing […]

Descriptions of varying lengths of books, articles and other media that might be of interest to those who are interested in leading and leadership. Russ Volckmann   Bruce J. Avolio. Full Range Leadership, 2nd Ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2011. Bruce Avolio has been a top researcher and thought leader in the area of leader […]

Richard Barrett, The New Leadership Paradigm, www.valuescenter.com www.newleadershipparadigm.com, Lulu.com, 508 pages. Jonathan Reams Last March I found myself spending a day at a European ALIA event co-sponsored by the Progressio Foundation. I was looking forward to meeting new faces and networking with like-minded individuals. Much to my surprise and pleasure, the opening speaker turned out […]

Kirsty Spence and Mark McDonald, Linking Developmental Action Logics to Transformational Leadership Behaviors, Journal of Integral Theory and Practice, December 2010. Aside from a couple of early articles of an introductory nature and Clint Fuhs integral examination of eight leadership books, articles on leadership in JITP have been rare. This should not be too surprising […]

In Leadership Emerging we bring to your attention new texts of special interest and merit. Check out these promising titles… ReVison: Special Issue on Transformative Leadership, Edited by Alfonso Montouri and Urusa Fahim, Winter 2010, Volume 30, Nos. 3 & 4. Published almost a year ago, this highly relevant issue of ReVision includes articles by […]

John Marshall Roberts. Igniting Inspiration: A Persuasion Manual for Visionaries. Self-published, 2008. First, I am surprised that this book has been out so long and only recently showing up on my radar screen. Why? Because I think it is an important book, particularly for those who wish to go beyond theory and model into the […]

Frederick Darbellay, Moira Cockell, Jerome Billotte, Francis Waldvogel, Editors.A Vision of Transdisciplinarity: LayingFoundations for a World Knowledge Dialogue. Laussanne, Switzerland: EPFL Press, 2008. This book deserves a far more in depth review that I will be able to offer at this time. It represents something that is very much at the heart of transdisciplinarity: given […]

Elizabeth Doty. The Compromise Trap: How to Thrive at Work Without Selling Your Soul. San Francisco: Barrett-Koehler, 2009. The Foreword is written by Art Kleiner, editor of the online publication Strategry+Business. He notes that business ethics is a thorny issue. He values this book because of “the questions it raises about organizational ethics and its […]

Linda Tarr-Whelan. Women Lead the Way: Your Guide to Stepping Up to Leadership and Changing the World. San Francisco: Barrett-Koehler, 2009. The premise behind this book is that there is a 30% solution to gender imbalance in leadership of businesses and government. By filling the chairs at the tables of decision making the character of […]

The Arbinger Institute. Leadership and Self-Deception. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler 2010. Self-deception shapes our experiences of life. This book seeks to determine the extent and implications of how it blinds us to seeing the true causes of our problems. The work of the Institute in teaching people about self-deception and how to address it is that […]

E.S. Wibbeke. Global Business Leadership. Burlington, MA: Butterworth-Heinemann, 2009. What could be more natural than to discover a more robust treatment of leadership than one that requires attention to cultural diversity? That is what we find in Wibberke’s treatment of leadership in global businesses. Granted, the focus of his discussion is on American business leaders […]

His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Laurens Van Den Muyzenberg. The Leader’s Way. Boston: Nicholas Brealey Publishing, 2009. How could you not want to read a collaboration between the Dalai Lama and a Dutch business consultant? The intrigue is even stronger when we discover that this book was in the making for nine years (1991-2000)—years of […]

Milton Friesen. Ingenuity Arts: Adaptive Leadership and the New Science. Airdrie, Alberta, Canada: Ingenuity Arts, 2009. Friesen models his topic by integrating a variety of topics into a perspective on leadership. Essentially drawing on complexity theory his focus is on approaches to organizational leadership that goes beyond theories and models and has relevance as well in […]

Joanne B. Ciulla, Ed. Ethics, the Heart of Leadership, 2nd edition with a Foreword by James MacGregor Burns. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers, 2004. Leadership is not a person or a position. It is a complex moral relationship between people, based on trust, obligation, commitment, emotion, and a shared vision of the good. [xv] At the heart […]

Steve Zaffron and Dave Logan, The Three Laws of Performance: Rewriting the Future of Your Organization and Your Life. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2009. Drawing on “an interdisciplinary slew of disciplines as disparate as brain science, linguistics, organizational theory, and complex adaptive systems with a few fundamental laws of human and organizational behavior” (Warren Bennis in the […]

David V. Day, Michelle M. Harrison and Stanley M. Halpin. An Integrative Approach to Leader Development: Connecting Adult Development, Identity, and Expertise. New York: Routledge, 2008. There will be an “in depth” review of this book in the January 2009 issue of Integral Leadership Review. Here I intend only to make you aware of this recently published […]

“CEO Survey: Forward March,” Inc. Special Issue 500: Meet This Year’s Fastest-Growing Private Companies, Inc. September 2008. P. 212. Elements of their CEO Survey a spread liberally throughout the publication show no statistics that I could find and excerpt out very few comments. They asked CEO’s to define their leadership styles. Here is the sampling of their […]

Robert H. Thompson The Offsite: A Leadership Challenge Fable, Forward by Jim Kouzes. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2008. A student and now associate of Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner, authors of The Leadership Challenge and several other books, Robert H. Thompson has produced another of those books about leadership in business that uses the fictional story format to make its points. […]

Mario Fernando, Spiritual Leadership in the Entrepreneurial Business: A Multifaith Study. Northampton, MA, USA or Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, 2007. Globilization is not just a phenomenon of economics and business. We have long known that it is a phenomenon of culture, as well. The Integral Leadership Review seeks to be a leader in the globilization of […]

Roger Martin. The Opposable Mind: How Successful Leaders Win Through Integrative Thinking. Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2007. University of Toronto Dean of the Rotman School of Management Martin has provided us with an overview of the model and development approaches for working with MBA students in teaching them integrative thinking. In doing so, he draws […]

Martin M. Chemers, An Integrative Theory of Leadership, Mahway, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers, 1997. Stimulated by the author’s chapter in Richard Couto’s edited volume, Reflections on Leadership, I have gone back to his book published in the late 1990s to see what we might learn about his approach to integrating theories of leadership. To begin […]

Reflections on Leadership. Richard A. Couto, ed. Lanham: University Press of America, Inc., 2007. James MacGregor Burns published his major work, Leadership, in 1978. Probably more than any other individual work, this book birthed the field of leadership studies, particular in the area of politics and community. In the business sector, the subject was a […]

The Quest for a General Theory of Leadership, George Goethals and Georgia Sorenson, eds. Northampton, MA, US A: Edward Elgar, 2006. This book represents a most robust look at the study of leadership while representing multiple disciplines in a “quest” to find agreement about leadership and theory. While the quest has not resulted in finding its prize, […]

This section of Integral Leadership Review is provided to inform readers about current publications about leadership.— Russ Volckmann In this issue we take a look at a new book by Porras et al. and some recent articles in Harvard Business Review. Jerry Porras, Steward Emery and Mark Thompson, Success Built to Last: Creating a Life That Matters. Upper […]

Summary: Ken Wilber Conversation with John Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods Part 1: The Future of Business is Integral Part 2: The Future of Politics is Integral Too http://in.integralinstitute.org/search.aspx?keyword=!business. This is, perhaps, one of the most stimulating and insightful conversations on the subject of business and an integral approach that I know of—and this coming from […]

Summary “Ideas as Art” The HBR Interview with James G. March, Harvard Business Review, 84, 10, October 2006, pp. 83-89. When I was a graduate student at Berkeley during the 1960s among the names of important contributors to organization theory was James G. March, along with others such as Peter Drucker, Herbert A. Simon, Wes Churchman […]

Terry Patten (adapted from Chapters 1 and 5 of A New Republic of the Heart: An Ethos for Revolutionaries © 2018 available from North Atlantic Books) There is overwhelming evidence that we are living at an enormous global tipping point—“the moment of critical mass, the threshold, the boiling point”(1). There are many signs—from actual weather […]

Jim Lockard “Don’t search for heaven and hell in the future. Both are now present. Whenever we manage to love without expectations, calculations, negotiations, we are indeed in heaven. Whenever we fight, hate, we are in hell. ~ Shams Tabrizi NOTE: This article is excerpted from my book, CREATING THE BELOVED COMMUNITY: A HANDBOOK FOR SPIRITUAL LEADERSHIP, and largely rewritten […]

The book is called Seeing Through the World by Jeremy Johnson and is a brilliant introduction to the teaching of Jean Gebser, a name you may not even have heard of. As I devoured the book in a single weekend (fortunately, it’s short), I could feel my world once again gently rocking on its foundations, always a good sign that a book has really hit home. I knew instantly I had a tiger by the tail.

Written by Brooke Linn  “An experience of patience or any other psychological resource is a state of mind, and enjoying it helps turn it into a positive trait embedded in your brain” (Hanson 20). This is the foundation of Rick Hanson’s book titled Resilient, which is a timely resource for anyone looking to harness the […]

Natasha Mantler Understanding and Evaluating Research, written by Sue L. T. McGregor, and published by Sage, is a critical guide on how to become research literate. There are many textbooks available on how to do research oneself; however, far fewer on how to critique someone else’s research. The textbook has 8 parts. Each chapter begins with learning objectives, […]

Cosmas Gitta Robertson Work joins a growing number of public intellectuals who warn of existential threats to humanity and the planet, while highlighting the unprecedented opportunities available to improve our life on a healthy planet. In the book A Compassionate Civilization, Work contends that the “world stands at the crossroads of interlocking crises of colossal dangers and […]

Thomas Mengel Given my interest both in leadership and the futures, A Transformation Journey to Creative And Alternative Planetary Futures (Motti, 2019; Cambridge Scholars Publishing) caught my immediate attention. Futures and leadership are implicitly interwoven throughout this book. While I would have loved to see “the complexity of leadership” more explicitly being addressed and discussed, […]

Elliot Talenfeld I have written a book that I would like to share with you. A work of narrative nonfiction, it is the story of my life and relationships, from a “psychospiritual perspective.” Beyond the behavioral events I’ve lived to tell about, my personal process – my thoughts, feelings and conflicts in the course of […]

Suzy Adra Utopia. It is a buzzword these days. What I learned about Utopia during my early days in college was that it is an ideal society where everything is perfect. Eisler and Frye’s Nurturing our Humanity speaks of this Utopia in a more approachable way:  they call it Humane society. This book is full of footnotes […]

Sue L. T. McGregor This book is edited by Canadians Shannon Moore and Richard Mitchell, both from Brock University in Ontario, Canada. Their edited collection is 150 pages in length with 7 chapters as well as an Introduction and Overview of the Volume. Nearly half (43%, 62 pages) of the book is devoted to two […]

Annabel Beerel John Knights, President of the U.K based leadership development and coaching organization, LeaderShape Global, along with several members of his team, advocate a new leadership approach for the twenty-first century called Transpersonal Leadership. The steps to becoming a transpersonal leader, are explained in great detail in their cutting-edge book, Leading Beyond the Ego. […]

Barbara Nussbaum This book has already been singled out by its academic publisher, Routledge, nominating it for the best nonfiction book in 2018. But for me the compelling reason for a broader audience to read it, is the artful way it embodies its own timely message for humanity. Peter Gabel makes a compelling case for […]

In Going Horizontal: Creating a Non-hierarchical Organization, One Practice at a Time Samantha Slade has captured in plain language how to achieve what so many of us have longed for deep down: A genuine invitation to common purpose through non-hierarchical practice, simple rules, and self-reflection. While the book’s tone feels like a conversation around Slade’s Montreal kitchen table, […]

Innovative Development: Emerging Worldviews and Systems Change (Integral Publishers, 2015) is a useful volume (edited by late Tom Christensen—you did a very good job here, Tom, and I wish you a blissful journey in the afterlife, whatever and however it is in actuality) that contains papers on Spiral Dynamics (SD) and the Gravesian theory as […]

Graham Mummery In the prefaces to the current book, Spiral Dynamics in Action: Humanity’s Master Code (Beck, Larsen, Solonin, Viljoen, Johns 2018), the authors and editors explain that this is a successor to the earlier work Spiral Dynamics: Mastering Values, Leadership and Change (2006). This is very much the case in that it updates some […]

Eugene Pustoshkin In Colin Wilson: Collected Essays on Philosophers, edited by Colin Stanley, with an introduction by John Shand, meaning perception, existential intensity, and overcoming our alienation from power consciousness, Colin Wilson’s optimistic existentialism, an integrally-informed view is explored. Man is alienated from the consciousness of his own power, and this alienation makes him sick, […]

Russell Fitzpatrick Robert Kegan and Lisa Laskow Lahey. An Everyone Culture: Becoming a Deliberately Developmental Organization. (2016). Harvard Business Review Press. An Everyone Culture: Becoming a Deliberately Developmental Organization by Robert Kegan and Lisa Laskow Lahey incorporates decades of personal developmental research into the world of organizational development. Any fan of personal developmental models knows the […]

Jon Freeman John Bunzl and Nick Duffell (2017). The Simpol Solution. Peter Owen Limited This is a good book, engaging, well written and with many interesting ideas which deserve consideration.  It has the major virtue of being original and distinctive; there are no well-trodden paths here. It starts from a familiar place, i.e. we know things are […]

Ron Cacioppe and Michael Fox Reinventing Organizations by Frederic Laloux is a ground breaking book that describes how the functioning and structure of organisations evolves over time to match the level of development of human consciousness. Organisations go through stages that are radically different, becoming more productive, collaborative and reach a higher level of functioning. Each […]

Ádám Olgyay Harald Harung and Frederick Travis (2016). Excellence through Mind-Brain Development: The Secrets of World Class Performers. London, UK. Routledge. We all want excellence and happiness. Thousands of books have been written on the topic of high performance and the secrets of success. There are two basic challenges. First, there are many competing ideas of […]

John Stewart Otto Laske, Dialectical Thinking for Integral Leaders: A Primer. Tucson: Integral Publishers, 2015. Gregory Bateson famously said: “The major problems in the world are the result of the difference between how nature works and the way people think.” This statement of Bateson’s identifies a serious issue for humanity. If our thinking does not enable us […]

Jackie Damrau Judith L. Glick-Smith (2016). Flow-Based Leadership: What the best firefighters can teach you about leadership and making hard decisions. Technics Publishers. Flow-Based Leadership: What the Best Firefighters Can Teach You About Leadership and Making Hard Decisions is about the leadership in the world of firefighting. These individuals have split seconds in which to […]

Joseph Friedman Eros/Power is a wonderfully brave and highly readable book. Brave because, although both Hilary Bradbury and Bill Torbert are acclaimed scholars, they have stepped from behind the safety of footnotes to write in a deeply personal manner,of eros (love, life energy, sensuality and sexuality) and power ( energy applied for effect, both unilateral […]

Nancy Southern We all are keenly aware of the importance of workplaces in shaping people, culture, and society. Our workplaces can create the conditions to support people in finding meaning in their life and work, engaging with others in ways that create new patterns of behavior that extend to cultural change within organizations and ultimately […]

Arzina Zaza Overview of the Work This book was very well written and it was extremely inspiring. From the time I picked up this book, I could not wait to keep reading and reviewing tips on how to continue to include GRIT into my life. This book is an excellent guide whether the reader is […]

Arzina Zaza Overview of the Work According to Dr. Stoltz, this book was written to help its readers understand what grit means, how to use grit and learn how to incorporate grit into their lives. The book first started with an introduction called Nitty-Gritty where the author presented what Grit was and what it means […]

Vladimir Ern Translator’s note: Russian culture cannot be fully comprehended without rediscovering its sacred roots in the form of sophisticated and advanced Integral philosophical systems, often known as Russian religious or spiritual philosophies. What follows are some striking excerpts from Vladimir Ern (1882–1917), a noteworthy Russian philosopher and passionate defender of Eros and Logos who is […]

Milana Vladimirovna Ragulina. Cultural Landscape: An Integral Perspective. (In Russian: Kul’turniy landshaft: integral’niy vzglyad). Ulyanovsk: Zebra, 2015. The book is available for free in Russian at elibary.ru. Eugene Pustoshkin and Alexander Malakhov Milana Vladimirovna Ragulina, PhD in Geographical Sciences, Doktor Geographicheskikh Nauk; leading research scientist at the Laboratory of Resource Management and Political Geography of the V. B. Sochava Institute […]

Robin Lincoln Wood. The Trouble with Paradise: A Humorous Enquiry into the Puzzling Human Condition in the 21st Century, Foreword by Ken Wilber. Bloomington, IN: Authorhouse, 2014. Russ Volckmann I met Robin Wood about a decade ago. He was in San Francisco to explore and promote his work in Europe, Renaissance 2, an integrally informed […]

Reflections on Otto Laske, Dialectical Thinking for Integral Leaders: A Primer Otto Laske, Dialectical Thinking for Integral Leaders: A Primer. Tucson: Integral Publishers, 2015. Russ Volckmann Full disclosure: I am the publisher of Otto Laske’s newest book, Dialectical Thinking for Integral Leaders: A Primer. As such I must acknowledge that I am part of a […]

Gibbs, P. (Ed.). (2015). Transdisciplinary professional learning and practice. New York, NY: Springer. ISBN 978-3-319-11589-4; eBook ISBN 978-3-319-11590-0 Sue L. T. McGregor This review profiles a recent edited collection about transdisciplinary professional learning and practice. It contains invited contributions, coordinated and edited by Dr. Paul Gibbs (Middlesex University in England). Although I wrote the first chapter, […]

Basarab Nicolescu. (2014). From modernity to cosmodernity: Science, culture, and spirituality. Albany, NY: SUNY Press. ISBN 978-1-4384-4963-0 or Kindle version. Sue L T. McGregor I am very familiar with Basarab Nicolescu’s formulation of transdisciplinarity, having been a keen student of his approach for over a decade. I have a deep respect for the brilliance and the quantum nuances of […]

Trevor Malkinson This new cosmological model called the human being comes equipped with the creative power of a supernova, the radiance of a golden spruce, the resiliency of our bacterial cousins, the determination of a spawning Coho salmon, and the heart-wisdom of Sophia. And in the “fullness of time”, Jesus emerges, a perfect reflection of […]

Diana Claire Douglas Sarah Nicholson and Vanessa Fisher were inspired to start a conversation within the Integral Community about sex, gender and sexuality. Their edited book Integral Voices is the result, and for many of their authors, just the beginning of that conversation. Invited to review Integral Voices, I was aware that I was dropping […]

Barbara Kellerman. Hard Times: Leadership in America (Uncorrected page proofs). Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 2014. Russ Volckmann In June 2012 we published an interview with Barbara Kellerman, an interview that was prompted by the publication of her important critique of the “leadership industry,” The End of Leadership. (Fresh Perspective: Barbara Kellerman and the Leadership […]

Gangadeep Singh and Raghu Ananthanarayanan. Organizational Development and Alignment: The Tensegity Mandala Framework. New Delhi: Sage, 2013. Russ Volckmann About fifteen years ago, Prasad Kaipa, Chris Newham and I managed to get a highly innovative article published by the Society for Organizational Learning. A copy of this article can be found at: http://selfcorp.prasadkaipa.com/selfcorpnew/pyramidbuildingapplication.htm. We spent […]

Elza S. Maalouf. Emerge! The Rise of Functional Democracy and the Future of the Middle East. New York: Select Books, 2014. (NOTE: This book has not been released as yet.) Russ Volckmann One of the challenges with Spiral Dynamics integral has not been the clarity of the Gravesian framework, but the fragmentation of information on […]

Mark Gilbert, Our Spiritual Evolution: Transcending the Third Dimension. Conscious Bridge Publishing, 2014. Robert Brzezinski Mark Gilbert creates an easy to follow and comprehend experience of understanding our personal worldview and how that fulfills our mission on the planet. He states his premise quite clearly when he writes, “You and I are on a journey. […]

Jeremy Rifkin. The Zero Marginal Cost Society: The Internet of Things, the Collaborative Commons, and the Eclipse of Capitalism. New York: Palgrave-Macmillan, 2014. Bruce Gibb My intention in this review is to show relevance of the book to Spiral Dynamics Integral. In summary, Rifkin uses a similar conceptual framework and his analysis proceeds from a […]

Hester Du Plessis, Jeffery Sehume and Leonard Martin. (2013). The Concept and Application of Transdisciplinarity in Intellectual Discourse and Research. Johannesburg, South Africa: Real African Publishers. Sue L.T. McGregor In March 2011, the Mapungubwe Institute for Strategic Reflection (MISTRA) was launched in South Africa, www.mistra.org.za It is an independent research institute (a think tank) that […]

Said E. Dawlabani. MEMEnomics: The Next Generation Economic System. New York: Select Books, 2013. Laura Frey Horn In MEMEnomics: The Next Generation Economic System Said Dawlabani presents a holistic approach to understanding the history and future of U.S. economics that goes well beyond money and finances. He embraces a whole systems philosophy that includes developing […]

John Mackey and Raj Sisodia, Conscious Capitalism: Liberating the Heroic Spirit of Business, Foreword by Bill George. Boston: Harvard Business Review Press, 2013. Preface This essay/review is primarily US-centric and my irresistible attraction to digging a little deeper into the lives of the authors, as well as exploring their work. I have labeled this section […]

Prasad Kaipa and Navi Radjou. From Smart to Wise: Acting and Leading with Wisdom. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2013. Russ Volckmann In the spirit of full disclosure, the reader should be aware that I have known one of these authors for decades. Not only have we worked together with corporate clients and professional training groups, but […]

Living Indigenous Leadership: Native Narratives on Building Strong Communities: Edited by Carolyn Kenny and Tina Ngaroimata Fraser. Julia Buchanan While pursuing my doctorate, I met a student in a leadership graduate program who was told his understanding of leadership was “incorrect.” When I probed further, I learned that according to him and the teachings of […]

Faisal Hoque, F. The Power of Convergence: Linking Business Strategies and Technology Decisions to Create Sustainable Success. New York: AMA, 2011. Felisa J.Parris Faisal Hoque, a former executive, is the founder and CEO of BTM Corporation. The BTM Corporation specializes in convergence transformative practices and best practices research. In 2008, Hoque was christened “Mr. Convergence” […]

Roger Klev and Morten Levin, Participative Transformation: Learning and Development in Practising Change. England: Gower Publishing Company, 2012 Carlotta S. Walker Introduction Klev and Levin began Participative Transformation by making a clear and concise statement of the intent of their work.  They stated that the aim of their book was to “build a research-supported foundation […]

King, T. C., & Ferguson, S. A. (2011). Black Womanist Leadership: Tracing the Motherline (Kindle ed.). New York: State University of New York Press. Adeeba Deterville The book is an important addition to the field of leadership as it may be the first of its kind to address the concept of leadership development through the […]

Integrative, Vedantin, or Neither Oliver Robinson. Development through Adulthood: An Integrative Sourcebook. Hampshire, England: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012.  Gerard Bruitzman Have you seen any one of the many productions now available featuring Stephen Hawking as he describes on the grounds of mathematical physics the grand design of the universe? As Hawking tells his awesome story with […]

Cindy Wigglesworth. SQ21: The Twenty-One Skills of Spiritual intelligence. New York: Select Books, 2012. Michael McElhenie Let’s get one thing straight right from the start. If you scour the planet, I am probably the least objective reviewer of Cindy’s incredible, ground breaking book. I have had the great pleasure of knowing Cindy for over ten […]

Howard Bloom. The God Problem: How a Godless Cosmos Creates. Amherst, New York: Prometheus Books, 2012. Call me old or cantankerous or both if you really must, but there are very few books that I get excited about these days. Gone are the days when I scoured the internet looking for new books that I […]

Tomas Sedlacek, Economics of Good and Evil. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011. Graham Mummery If, for a moment, we accept the economic consensus view that growth is the solution to the current economic crisis, one “growth area” we might observe is the crop of books and articles about that same crisis. As the great economist […]

Kellerman, Barbara. The End of Leadership. (New York: Harper Business). 2012 Richard A. Couto “I think it’s the most important leadership book of the past decade.” With that, the editor handed off Barbara Kellerman’s latest book, The End of Leadership for me to review. I was already positively biased towards Kellerman’s work. She has been […]

Haidt, Jonathan, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion. (New York: Pantheon), 2012. Bruce L. Gibb The Righteous Mind is clear, accessible, and interesting. Haidt breaks the “third wall” and relates his own personal journey of developing awareness and understanding. This journey is an engaging way to do the expected […]

Russ Volckmann Stephane Hessel and Edgar Morin.s The Path of Hope, foreword by Jeff Madrick. New York: Other Press, 2012. It is an election year in Algeria, Egypt, France, Iran, Italy, the US, Israel, Russia, and elsewhere. Do you think that is a reason for so much interest in integral circles in politics and action? […]

Is the Mythopoetic Men’s Movement Ready for the Leap to Integral? A Review of Awakening the New Masculine: The Path of the Integral Warrior, by Gary Stamper, Ph.D. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2012. William Harryman When I see a new book coming out from someone involved with the integral movement (Stamper co-founded and led the […]

A Review Essay on Ronnie Lessem’s and Alexander Schieffer’s Integral Economics (Gower, 2010) Christian Arnsperger The discipline of economics has fallen into a deep crisis, just as humanity is scrambling for a new – and, for the first time perhaps, completely global – worldview that will allow it to address the immense challenges of economic […]

Paul Roscorla John Rayment and Jonathan Smith: Misleadership: Prevalence, Causes & Consequences.  Farnham, Surrey, UK: Gower, 2011. This book has an intriguing title and therefore considerable potential to be thought provoking.  There is a good idea here that the authors, who are business academics and business consultants, have been commissioned to explore.  Whether or not […]

Nick Obolensky. Complex Adaptive Leadership. Farnham, Surrey, England: Gower, 2010 Nick Shannon In one of the appendices to this book, the author tells a story about Cheyenne Indian tribes whose initiation rights for young men included sending them out on a hunt for buffalos. Invariably such hunts were initially unsuccessful. Returning empty handed, initiates would […]

John Rowan Mark D Forman. A Guide to Integral Psychotherapy: Complexity, Integration and Spirituality in Practice. Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 2010. R. Elliott Ingersoll & David M Zeitler. Integral Psychotherapy: Inside Out. Outside In. Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 2010.         Two books on the same subject, from the same publisher, in the […]

  John Marshall Roberts. Igniting Inspiration: A Persuasion Manual for Visionaries. Transformational Design, 2008. One of the challenges people steeped in theory and ideas have is learning to successfully communicate with those who hold different theories or ideas. Another is to communicate with those who don’t give a fig for either theories or ideas  different […]

  Bill George and Doug Baker. True North Groups: A Powerful Path to Personal and Leadership Development. San Francisco: Barrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc.. 2011. During the last year I have been in a process of interviewing CEOs and entrepreneurs, We have talked a lot about their development as individuals that prepared them to be effective in […]

  Maureen Metcalf & Mark Palmer. . Innovative Leadership Fieldbook. Tucson, AZ: Integral Publishers. James L. Ritchie-Dunham What is interesting about this book?  One of my favorite papers on “interesting” suggests that showing what seems to be complicated and disparate is actually straightforward and connected is interesting (Davis, 1971).  The world of leadership development is […]

  Jeff Klein. Working for Good: Making a Difference While Making a Living. Boulder CO: Sounds True, 2009. Russ Volckmann Not so long ago when I thought of what kind of training would best develop individuals for leader roles, I looked to people like Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner or institutions like The Center for […]

It took a long time to decide on the awards this year. Well, we could have done it sooner, but we didn’t. Part of the challenge was choosing between two outstanding books. If you are interested in integral, interested in leading and leadership in organizations, interested in reading about these things, these two – yes, […]

Book Review: The Postconventional Personality: Assessing, Researching, and Theorizing Higher Development Angela Pfaffenberger, Paul Marko, and Allan Combs (Editors). The Postconventional Personality: Assessing, Researching, and Theorizing Higher Development. Albany, New York State University Press, 2011. Glen Rogers Religion is poetry that we believe in – Santayana This edited book on the farthest reaches of adult holistic development […]

Hubert Hermans & Agnieszka Hermans-Konopka (2010)/ Dialogical Self Theory: Positioning and Counter-positioning in Globalizing Society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. John Rowan This is a brilliant book which would be of interest to Integral people for three reasons: although it does not have a concept of levels, it does range over all four quadrants of the […]

Elliot Jaques Revisited Jan De Visch, The Vertical Dimension. Blueprint to Align Business and Talent Development (Connect & Transform Press, 2010) ISBN 978-94-9069-538-5. Available from http://www.connecttransform.be/ Nick Shannon At first sight this is not a book about leaders or leadership. It is a book about organizational development setting out a theory of the thinking and […]

This Way, Please! Review of Edgar Morin’s, La Voie. Pour l’avenir de l’humanité Michel Nguyen The   In his last book and essay La Voie (The Way, January 2011), Edgar Morin shows us the way, for the future of humanity (as suggested by the subtitle).  He makes it clear that he is talking about the […]

Robert Goffee and Gareth Jones, Why Should Anyone Be Led by You? What It Takes to Be an Authentic Leader Ron Cacioppe Many companies are managed not by leaders, but by role players and boring bureaucrats. But what does it take to be a real leader—one who is confident in who she is and what […]

Sharda S. Nandram and Margot Esther Borden, Editors. Spirituality and Business: Exploring Possibilities for a New Management Paradigm. Berlin: Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg Publishers, 2010 Brian Van der Horst Writing about spirituality and business has always seemed to me about as easy as nailing Jello to a wall. However, the editor/authors of this book have done […]

Naturally Selected: The Evolutionary Science of Leadership by Mark van Vugt and Anjana Ahuja (New York: HarperCollins), 2011. Bruce Gibb The authors purport to present a “brand new theory of leadership, grounded in evolutionary science” which they dub the “Evolutionary Theory of Leadership” or ELT. They accept what they call the textbook definition of a […]

Child Man—The Selfless Narcissist by Ashok Malhotra Arundhati Ghosh Ashok Malhotra, graduated in Philosophy before doing a post graduation in Management. His career comprises a stint in teaching at the  Administrative Staff College, leading the HR function in Indian as well as Multinational companies. He is now a management consultant who has over two decades […]

Book Review The Empathic Civilization by Jeremy Rifkin Bruce L. Gibb Jeremy Rifkin. The Empathic Civilization. New York: Penguin, 2009. If you are a spiralcrat, you are going to love Jeremy Rifkin’s book, a wonderful compilation of historical, psychological, and sociological stories chronicling the human journey through the vMemes of the Spiral. One might conclude […]

Review Michael Horace Barnes, Stages of Thought Science and Religion through History As Seen through the Lens of Stage by Lucas Alexander Haley Commons-Miller Michael Horace Barnes. Stages of Thought: The Co-Evolution of Religious Thought and Science. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009. In Stages of Thought, Michael Horace Barnes explains how societies have evolved […]

Mark G. Edwards. Organisational Transformation for Sustainability: An Integral Metatheory. New York: Routledge, 2010. by Russ Volckmann About The Book Bill Torbert, interviewed in this issue of Integral Leadership Review, wrote the foreword. There he wrote, “Once every generation or so, a field-defining scholarly statement appears. Mark Edwards’s metatheory for organizational transformation is such a […]

Michael Stron’s Be the Solution – How Entrepreneurs and Conscious Capitalists Can Solve All the World’s Problems by John Bunzl As the title suggests, Be the Solution argues that our planetary crisis can be solved through the flowering of responsible entrepreneurship along with a stakeholder approach to business known as Conscious Capitalism. “Focused entirely on […]

Raul Quinones Rosado Consciousness-in-Action: Toward an Integral Psychology of Liberation & Transformation Caguas, Puerto Rico: Ile Publications, 2007 by Russ Volckmann Have you ever been to an integral event? Workshops near Boulder, Colorado? Or ILP sessions in San Francisco or New York? Or Integral Leadership in Action in Texas? Or the Integral Theory Conference in […]

Measuring Hidden Dimensions of Human Systems: “Foundations of Requisite Organization”, Vol. 2, Otto Laske, (2009) Interdevelopmental Institute Press, Medford, MA, USA by Bernardo A Merizalde In Volume 2 of his series, Measuring Hidden Dimensions of Human Systems: Foundations of Requisite Organization, Otto Laske presents the second, but not less important, strand of his Constructive Developmental […]

Monologism and Dialogism in Sense-Making and Meaning Making Per Linell, Rethinking Language, Mind, and World Dialogically. Charlotte, North Carolina: Information Age Publishing, Inc., 2009 Russ Volckmann Recently I have been musing a bit about language and meaning making. This has included exploring Otto Laske’s notions of dialectical thinking and the mindset that goes with it, […]

Howard Bloom’s The Genius of the Beast: A Radical Revision of Capitalism New York: Prometheus Books, 2009 by Keith Bellamy Recently, the thought of reading yet another Integral Theory book, or even an integrally informed book, has filled me with a sense of dread. Sadly, many of the books being published in this genre are, […]

A Holistic View for Responsible Leaders Review of Peter Merry, Evolutionary Leadership Pacific Grove: Integral Publishers, 2009 by Antonio Marturano Britisher Peter Merry calls himself a synnervator (from “Syn-“ to interconnect, and “-nervate” to vitalise) who spent much of his life moving around, living in Canada, France, Germany, Switzerland, Ghana, and currently he is in […]

Leadership Lessons from the Death Zone A Review of Chris Warner and Don Schmincke’s High-Altitude Leadership: What the World’s Most Forbidding Peaks Teach Us About Success, Jossey-Bass, 2008 Regina Schulte-Ladbeck Climbing mountains is not a sport; it is a lifestyle. I am convinced of this because I am a rock climber myself. The peaks I […]

Nick Owen’s Salmon of Knowledge All it takes are six little words to catch and hold an individual’s attention. “Let me tell you a story.” No matter our age, from infant to nonagenarian, the thought of hearing or telling a story acts at the deepest level of our neural structures and prepares us for a […]

Review: How We Get Stuck, and How We Get Unstuck: A Review and Muse A Review of Robert Kegan and Lisa Laskow Lahey’s Immunity to Change, Boston: Harvard Business Press, 2009 You will be glad to realize that you already know exactly when to apply the “learning platform” that Kegan and Lahey have presented in […]

Step into the Service and Challenge of Dialectical Thinking: A Brief Review of Otto Laske’s Manual of Dialectical Thought Forms How we think. For many people, this may be a mysterious black box to consider. Most of the time, most of us are so busy thinking what we think that we are not observing how […]

Differences, Diversity and Development: A Review and Exploration An Extended Review of Debbe Kennedy’s Putting our Differences to Work Russ Volckmann Debbe Kennedy has produced a remarkable book, Putting Our Differences to Work, in which she provides a convincing case for the importance of differences at work for fostering innovation. She also offers a framework for […]

Review of Randall Benson’s The Quest Effect Benson, Randall (2009). The Quest Effect: Mastering Breakthrough in Your Organization. Who is the hero, that more-than-life-sized figure of myth and history and fairy tale; the conqueror of evil, the liberator, the rescuer of the oppressed? How terrible to think of not being the hero of one’s own life; […]

Lest you are concerned that this may be another academic treatise and of little practical value, please consider this: How we make meaning in the world governs all of our choices and influences our actions. The reason that work in fields such as integral and transdisciplinarity is so important is that they offer far more […]

A Review of Don Dunoon, In the Leadership Mode. Vancouver, Canada: Trafford Publishers, 2008. And a nod to Sara Nora Ross, “Fractal Transition Steps To Fractal Stages: The Dynamics of Evolution, II,” World Futures, Vol. 64 Nos. 05–07 (2008); and “Perspectives On Troubled Interactions: What Happened When A Small Group Began To Address Its Community’s Adversarial Political […]

David Day, Michelle Harrison, and Stanley Halpin. An Integrative Approach to Leader Development: Connecting Adult Development, Identity, and Expertise. New York: Taylor & Frances Group, Routledge (2009). Mindful of the fragmented approaches to developing leaders and leadership, these authors have thoughtfully integrated fields of inquiry (cognitive, social, organizational, developmental and organizational psychology, identity theory, competency/behavior) in […]

Marilyn Hamilton (2008). Integral City: Evolutionary Intelligences for the Human Hive. Gabriola Island, BC, Canada: New Society Publishers. About Integral City Integral City describes the city as if it were a whole system, the human equivalent of the bee hive. It proposes an integral meta-framework to reframe cities as resilient, vibrant human habitats. In the context of […]

Kalman’s Kosmos Matthew Kalman is on paternity leave. We look forward to his return to Integral Leadership Review soon. In the meanwhile, we will offer the opportunity to review books (and other documents) to those with a capacityto “go deep.” Sara Nora Ross is one of those people. Additional comments about the book in which […]

Andrew Shorrock. The Transpersonal in Psychology, Psychotherapy and Counselling. Basingstoke/New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008. Andrew Shorrock offers us a brief—somewhat over 200 pages—yet informative canter through the highways and byways of transpersonal psychology, Ken Wilber’s intellectual home until he launched his own ‘Integral’ movement in the mid- to late-90s (though Ken backdates his actual exit from […]

The gift we hold within is for the others we meet without. Introduction This much I know to be true, the easiest way to cripple a person for life is to make them blind to their greatest potentials. And regrettably, the easiest way to become this crippling force is to neglect your own emerging potential. […]

The last issue of Integral Leadership Review contained a review of my book, Integral Consciousness and the Future of Evolution, by Matthew Kalman. Although Mr. Kalman had a variety of complimentary things to say about my work, towards the end of the review he became quite negative and even cynical. Interestingly, I expected that my entry […]

Kalman’s Kosmos Steve McIntosh, Integral Consciousness and the Future of Evolution: How the Integral Worldview is Transforming Politics, Culture and Spirituality. St. Paul, MN, US A: Paragon House, 2007). This is a book some of your integral friends will probably already be reading. It aims to be both fully ‘Integral’, yet not Wilber-centric—indeed it even offers a critique […]

“ I am the universe writing about itself. You are the universe reading about itself. ” Russ Volckmann’s request that I review Peter Merry’s Evolutionary Leadership has been a personal gift to me. It is rare to come across writing that seems interwoven with one’s own heartstrings and core concerns. As far as I am concerned, this […]

C. Otto Scharmer, Theory U: Leading From the Future as it Emerges—The Social Technology of Presencing. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Society for Organizational Learning, 2007, xxiv, 533 pages. Scharmer’s book on the ‘U process’ comes across as part theory, part manifesto for social change and part personal odyssey. And the new ‘social leadership technology’ he offers also comes […]

Ken Shepard (Series Editor), Jerry L.Gray, James G. (Jerry) Hunt and Sarah McArthur (Editors), and E. Forrest Christian (Writing Consultant), Organization Design, Levels of Work & Human Capability – Executive Guide. (Ontario: Global Organization Design Society, 2007) To say that Elliott Jaques’s 50 years of organisational and leadership/management research and practice is ‘controversial’ is an understatement. His […]

Lawrence E. Harrison. The Central Liberal Truth: How Politics Can Change a Culture and Save It from Itself. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006, 272 pages) This is a great read if you’re interested in the role culture can play in enabling—or slowing—human development, along with how leaders can work to promote progressive cultural changes in […]

Otto Laske. Measuring Hidden Dimensions – The Art and Science of Fully Engaging Adults. Medford, M A:Interdevelomental Institute Press, 2006. This feels like a book of conside power, focus, honesty and splendour – and it’s also not for the faint-hearted. It’s tempting to say, simply, that you will want to buy this book if you have any wish […]

Kalman’s Kosmos Fred Kofman, Conscious Business: How to Build Value through Values. Boulder, Colorado, US A: Sounds True, 2006. I knew precious little about Fred Kofman’s work before reading his new book, Conscious Business: How to Build Value through Values. But I was impressed by what I did know: he was a colleague of management guru Peter Senge at […]

Kalman’s Kosmos Richard Barrett (2006). Building a Values-Driven Organization: A Whole System Approach to Cultural Transformation. London: Butterworth Heinemann, Elsevier. When I read on Don Beck’s Spiral Dynamics Integral e-list that ” HearthStone Homes is one of the few companies that has instituted an Integral culture in the workplace” my ears pricked up. Has this Omaha-based home […]

Summary Nathan Harter, Clearings in the Forest: On the Study of Leadership. West Lafayette, Indiana: Purdue University Press. Books on the study of leadership, rather than advice to those who want to be leaders, are rare. To find one that is aware of the multiple aspects of the study and practice of leadership is also rare. […]

Summary Nick Owen. (2004). More Magic of Metaphor: Stories for Leaders, Influencers and Motivators. Carmarthen, Wales, UK: Crown House Publishing Ltd. Owen’s first volume, the Magic of Metaphor includes 77 stories for teachers, trainers and thinkers. It is in its sixth printing and has been published in five languages. I must confess, despite my life’s experience […]

Mark Edwards: At it Again…and Again,,, and Again… “On Being Critical” and Parallel Theories of an AQAL Approach to Relationality: Three Conversations with Ken Wilber The last couple of months have seen further evidence of the value that Mark Edwards brings to integral communities and the development of integral theory. To his credit Ken Wilber […]

Edwards wrote this paper to provide a brief, clear guide to key points he makes in an extended presentation also available at Frank Visser’s web site It seems a number of individuals have approached him to explore this work, but not sustained contact. I have to confess that I am probably one of the poor […]

Journal of Organizational Change Management: Integrally informed approaches to organizational transformation, Nancy E. Landrum and Jim Paul, eds., 18, 3, 2005. There is no way I can do justice to the material in this publication. Therefore, I will highlight a couple of interesting pieces related to Integral Leadership. Here is the articles included in this […]

The material that follows suggests some considerations for Integral Leadership development. Some of the ideas are immediately actionable, others may take a while. Rost distinguishes between leader development and leadership development: Leader development promotes the “Lone Ranger” or “John Wayne” view of leadership, variants on the great man/woman theory of leadership that has regained a […]

Offers a powerful method that leaders in organizations of all types can use to increase the timeliness and effectiveness of their actions. Provides numerous real-world examples of action inquiry in action Includes exercises individuals and organizations can use to begin practicing action inquiry “A book for managers and students of management who are serious about […]

Daryl S. Paulson, Ph.D., Competitive Business, Caring Busining. New York: Paraview Press, 2002. (with a Forward by Ken Wilber) Let’s address the Forward first: Ken Wilber points out that this is one of the first integrated approaches to business to be published. “It is fresh, provocative, and daring. Although I do not necessarily agree with all […]

Editors note: The following books are aggregated from the ILR network— we’d love to see them reviewed in future issues! Please reach out to us if you’re interested in writing one. Conscious Leadership by John Mackey, Steve McIntosh, and Carter Phipps Institute for Cultural Evolution cofounders Steve McIntosh and Carter Phipps teams up with Whole […]

Tim Merry Yes to the reminder that we are just part of the universe One verse In a song So long It does not belong To Anyone Or any part Though it rests in every heart In its wholeness The caress Of the winds and rains of Pele Left me Deeply touched, moved New grooves […]

Tim Merry Stepping up to voice My choice To let it go The flow Is beyond control So when you fall Roll Then rise Open your eyes See the fresh horizon Great eastern sun risin’ Resplendent Transcendent Heaven sent An extension To the new dimension The fourth perspective Reflective Of the so far unseen Subtle […]

Tim Merry This is about the cravin’ for savin’ Wanting to control the rampant misbehavin’ Breaking the shackles of all the enslavin’ Break it down Gather round Cause we messin’ up the earth Tearing up the turf The place is our birth Right Someone turn on the light Cause we all fightin’ In the dark […]

Tim Merry I’m tired Of hearing how beings are wired For self – destruction The media barrage Creating a collage Of war Environmental collapse by human cause War on terror The evening news documenting constant human error Reporting the social fabric unwinding Blinding Us to our innate State Of being fine I believe every human […]

Tim Merry “we wakin’” up all the time I’m wakin’ up as I sit here and rhyme, when i get lost in the flow of a river feel a cold shiver notice the clouds gather on a stormy day feel sadness as one I love passes away see a huge vista from a mountain top […]

Tim Merry I just read about the coming of the ice age Earth’s rage The mighty mother, the sage,  Turning another page Of evolution A natural solution The vibration Of creation Melting ice caps into the gulf stream flows The European heating system blows Beyond repair My mother, father, sister, brother live there Stop, bear […]

Tim Merry I feel that our divisions point to our unity The pieces that we uniquely Most search for in our lives Are our path Each of us seeking that which will heal us Bring us back into wholeness And that is different for everyone Under the moon and the sun That is why it […]

Tim Merry Finding my feet And already meeting The slowness of this soil This land Which so much has passed over A Blessing No messin’ A Blessing To have been bypassed By the viral Rampage Swallowing up my homelands My Childhood lands Which are wallowing in quicksands Wild-life dissappearing Wilderness becoming parks Peoples wild side […]

Or Towards a Butterfly Civilization The citizens of planet Earth have reached a choice point, whether they know it or not. Human activity and technology have fostered in a new epoch known as the Anthropocene. Humans, through their ingenuity and their ignorance, have become a literal force of nature. To name but a few of […]

Compassion, Connection and Response-Ability Salt Lake City, Utah http://humanscienceinstitute.org   Today’s social and environmental challenges call all of us to engage in creating a more humane and ecologically sustainable future. But, when the media is tuned to the hyperbole of catastrophe in all areas of our lives – security and safety, economic collapse, ecological disaster […]

Dear MetaIntegral Community, The moment many of you have been waiting for… The announcement of our next round of grant finalists. But first, let me just say a few words about the process.  We received a wide range of amazing proposals (24 to be exact) led by some incredible integral thinkers. As part of our selection process, […]

23rd CEEMAN Annual Conference Almaty, Kazakhstan 23-26 Sep 2015 This International Association for Management Development in Dynamic Societies conference  will be attended by at least 150 participants from 35 countries – deans and directors of business schools and universities, corporate partners, and international publishers. The topic of the 2015 conference is Localization vs. Globalization of […]

International Leadership Association to Explore Leading Across Borders and Generations at 17th Annual Global Conference Barcelona, Spain October 14-17, 2015 The International Leadership Association, the global network for all those with a professional interest in leadership, will be holding its 2015 annual global conference in Barcelona, Spain. Taking place October 14-17, ILA 2015 will bring […]

 Women Impacting Healthcare – Broadening Our Leadership November 6, 2015 Minneapolis, MN The University of Minnesota’s 4th annual full-day Women Impacting Healthcare conference, Broadening Our Leadership, is designed for women professionals in healthcare and offers unique lessons and learning opportunities for high-performing leaders. The day’s sessions will focus around diverse communities, global initiatives, and international […]

APROS/EGOS Conference “Spaces, Constraints, Creativities: Organization and Disorganization” Sydney, Australia December 9–11, 2015 Hosted by CMOS (Centre for Management and Organisation Studies) UTS Business School, University of Technology, Sydney in collaboration with APROS (Asia Pacific Researchers in Organization Studies and EGOS (European Group for Organizational Studies). For additional information, go here.

New Directions in Leadership Studies: Exploring the Critical Turn Lancaster University 13th–15th December 2015 In 2015 the International Studying Leadership Conference returns to Lancaster University Management School. Having hosted the Conference in 2003 and 2005, as well as having launched the Leadership journal in 2005, Lancaster provides an ideal setting for debates and discussions about […]

GLOBAL DRUCKER FORUM 5 – 6 NOV 2O15 Vienna, Austria The Drucker Forum 2015 touches a key theme of our time: it will look at the technology revolution – with Robotics, Big Data, Artificial Intelligence, Cloud Computing, and The Internet of Things – through the lens of humanity. This leads into fundamental questions to be […]

All delegates wishing to attend the British Academy of Management Conference will need to be a BAM member. So you will need to pay the membership and the Conference fee. The fee covers delegate’s lunches and refreshments for the duration of the conference. There is also a Gala Dinner which is held on Wednesday 09th […]

Dennis Wittrock has sent out the following appeal: Get behind IEC 2016 – support the team! For the 2nd Integral European Conference in 2016 I ask for your help – the help of the integral community. We need to raise funds to finance the work of our core team members for the coming 9 months. […]

Jordan Luftig With one month before the fourth Integral Theory Conference gets underway, I have to say that the public’s perception of ITC 2015 probably falls short of the amazing reality we have in store for conference participants. We don’t have the requisite marketing and social media muscle at MetaIntegral Foundation, or through our new […]

The Pursuit of Leadership Symposium: Remembering James MacGregor Burns 2-Day Symposium with George Washington’s Mount Vernon April 9 – 10, 2015 | Fred W. Smith National Lib. for the Study of George Washington | Mt. Vernon, VA, USA Home  •  Registration  •  Program  •  Accommodations  Will You Be the Next Editor of Building Leadership Bridges? The ILA is currently seeking a lead […]

Royal College of Physicians, 6 Kildare Street, D2 | 22 April | 9am to 1pm The Third Act refers to the final third of our lives, something that has been fundamentally changed by human longevity. We are now living 30 years longer than our great-grandparents. What was old age for them is now middle age […]

The Otto Laske Interdevelopmental Institute (IDM) is the world-renowned teaching and research center for adult development based on the Constructive Developmental Framework (CDF). April 29, 2015 1PM ET – 6 x 1h, weekly, with time slots for independent cohort work $625.00 In this course, team leaders and team coaches acquire new competences pertaining to working […]

2015 Integral Theory Conference Half- and full-day pre-conference workshops: July 16, 2015 (Registration for workshops opens soon!) Main conference starts Thursday, July 16 at 6 pm and ends Sunday, July 19 at 3:30 pm Post-conference workshop: July 20, 2015 (no charge) ITC 2015, the world’s largest academic conference devoted to the field of Integral Theory […]

Call for Papers The Association of Leadership Educators (ALE) invites you to join us at our 25th annual professional conference in Washington, D.C. July 12-15, 2015. This year’s conference theme, “The Courage to Lead” celebrates the courage that our founding members had to create this organization, as well as the courage that those who teach, […]

Placing Announcements Not for profit organizations may send announcements to, and get additional information from, Mark@integralleadershipreview.com for posting in Integral Leadership Review. We have three issues with a total of about eight releases a year. Posting announcements is free for not for profit organizations. For profit announcements can be placed as ads on the Welcome […]

If you would like your announcements to appear in The Integral Leadership Review, send brief copy and general contact information to Mark McCaslin: potentiatingarts@gmail.com. International Leadership Association Call for Chapters Leadership 2050: Contextualizing Global Leadership Processes for the Future   The 2015 Volume in the ILA Building Leadership Bridges (BLB) Series Call for Chapter Proposals […]

Danah Zohar, “SQ and Quantum Leadership” Oxford, UK, February 16-21 (http://danahzohar.com/www2/?page_id=142 ) WHAT the Course Covers: teaching, dialogue, exercises, and course materials to guide participants in enhancing their own and their clients’ vision, values, motivations, sense of purpose and vocation, adding value to their personal lives and enabling them to become high SQ and Quantum […]

MiniTrends 2013: The Integration of Profit & Social Responsibility Conference October 2-3, 2013, Holiday Inn Town Lake, Austin, TX For 20% off registration fee, use Discount Code ILR2013 (Code goes just above large, green Eventbrite “Register” button.) (Government/Academic/Student rates available) Minitrends—emerging trends that will soon become important but not yet widely recognized–offer attractive business opportunities […]

Notice: If you want your conference or other event included in ILR Announcements, send a request through Contact Us on the ILR Welcome Page. Announcements will be deleted as the event dates occur. _____________________________________________________ The 3rd Coast Center for Human Emergence Presents INAUGURAL WEEK with SPIRAL DYNAMICS and MEMENOMICS TRAINING HOUSTON, TEXAS, 9/20-24 Dr. Don […]

Let nearly 3000 subscribers to Integral Leadership Review know about your conference or other events sponsored by not-for-profit organizations. Send a brief announcement to russ@integralleadershipreview.com We will no longer be publishing announcements without submissions from organizers. –––––––––––––––––––– 28th Annual Symposium for the
 Society for Research in Adult Development June 21=234, 2013 The Symposium will focus […]

  The New National Collegiate Leadership Association! The National Collegiate Leadership Association is an organization for any college student interested in leadership development. Membership benefits include: Monthly webinars focused on particular leadership topics Monthly Leaders Live! sessions with community leaders Access to an ePortfolio Online topical discussions Best practices sharing Discounted rate for the National […]

‘Good Leadership for All’ Day Tuesday, 25 October 2011 in London http://bit.ly/GLfADay25Oct2011 Good Leadership for All – A Fundamental Need of Global Citizens Good leadership is much needed around the world, not only at governmental levels and in business organisations, but also in all other contexts, cultures, and at all societal levels. Indeed, good leadership […]

Not for profit organizations are encouraged to provide brief announcements about events, conferences, workshops, meetings, publications and the like that are being held anywhere in the world. A logo or graphic many accompany each announcement. Please draft the material to be included. Keep verbiage to a minimum, but convey the important information about your activity. […]

The Center for Human Emergence Netherlands Fifth annual Spiral Dynamics integral EuroConFab, April 8 -10, 2011 Almere, The Netherlands Register at http://www.schoolofsynnervation.nl/en/news_201012_Confab.php The purpose is to create an internationally shared field of best practices of emergence and evolutionary change. Share  and discuss your findings and challenges as a SDi practitioner We invite you to put […]

Join Bill Torbert or David Rooke for a three-day workshop that trains coaches, consultants, business persons, and academics in the Leadership Development Framework featured in Harvard Business Review (“Seven Transformations of Leadership”–April 2005) and the book Action Inquiry: The Secret of Timely and Transforming Leadership (2004). This workshop authorizes participants to commission and debrief the […]

———————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— Integral Leadership Review Website Overhaul As you no doubt have noticed, we are in the process of overhauling Integral Leadership Review, and creating a website that can accommodate new interactive Web 2.0 technologies. Eventually, all of the material from the original site will be brought into the new site and be indexed and searchable via […]

Announcements related to Not-for-Profit conferences, programs and publications will be included if submitted toruss@integraleadershipreview.com within one week of publication in each issue. See Submission Guidelines for publication dates. Announcements of For-Profit programs and publications will be treated as promotions and advertising. Rates for this can be negotiated by contactingruss@integraleadershipreview.com. ^––––––– ^ Integral Review Integral Review 5 published […]

Do you have an event or activity that you would like the readers of Integral Leadership Review to learn about? If you are a not for profit organization, send your announcement far enough in advance to make it into an issue that is timely for your event or activity. Announcing the 2nd International Worldly Leadership […]

Freddie Northern 3000th Subscriber to Integral Leadership Review We don’t know much about Freddie (other than his amazing good taste in reading material), but here he is, Freddie Northern, the 3000th subscriber to Integral Leadership Review. Thank you, Freddie! Our way of saying thanks was to send him this special edition Integral Leadership Review mug. […]

Integral Review Special Issue on Integral Politics, edited by Sara Ross Available Now: http://integral-review.org/current_issue/politics-issue_index.asp   Meaning Conference 2010 The International Network on Personal Meaning (INPM) is pleased to announce the 6th Biennial International Meaning Conference to be held August 5-8, 2010 in Vancouver, Canada. The main conference theme this year is: Creating a psychologically healthy […]

Society for Research in Adult Development 25th Annual Adult Development Symposium March 9-10, 2010 ~ In Philadelphia Sofitel Hotel 120 South 17th Street Philadelphia, PA 19103 Hotel Website Symposium Fees Professional $60 ($75 at the door) Student $35 ($40 at the door) Register for the Adult Development Symposium online: http://adultdevelopment.org/register_now.html Alternatively, you may register by […]

Spirals over the Rockies – Register Now! Boulder, Colorado, USA November 9-15, 2009 SPIRAL DYNAMICS IN ACTION Dr. Don Beck and The Spiral Dynamics Group warmly invite you to participate in a week of dynamic and engaging learning in beautiful Boulder. We offer these certification courses: * SDi Level One Foundations: November 9-11, 2009 * […]

State of the World Forum We want to inform you that the upcoming State of the World Forum has been rescheduled from November 12-14, 2009 to February 28 – March 3, 2010. This has come about due to the extraordinary success of our endeavors and the fact that what was originally an intent to convene a […]

Integral Theory Conference 2010 John F. Kennedy University Concord, California As part of its overall mission to promote mixed methods academic inquiry, the Integral Research Center hosts an Integral Research track at the biennial conference on Integral Theory. Please direct all conference inquiries to ITC@jfku.edu. Please include an email subject clearly addressing the nature of […]

Peter Merry, Evolutionary Leadership Order now! 20% off advance copy if ordered by April 15, 2009. ^––––––– ^ ALIA Institute Authentic Leadership Programs Join Bill Torbert and an inspired community of thought-leaders at the Authentic Leadership in Action (ALIA) Institute programs. ALIA Institute offers a uniquely dynamic and integrative model of leadership development that includes […]

What have you read related to Integral Leadership in 2008 that you think is outstanding? It is time once again to submit nominations for the Integral Leadership Review’s Readers’ Choice Award It can be a book, an essay, an article in any publication! Send your nominations to russ@integralleadershipreview.com 2007 winners:   Bill Joiner and Steve Josephs […]

European Conference on Developmental Psychology ECDP will be held in Vilnius,Lithuania, August 18th to 22nd, 2009,with pre-Conference workshops focused on recent methodological advances on August 17th and 18th. Abstracts for presentations must be submitted by December 15th, 2008. Notifications of acceptance will be received by March 15, 2009. Reviewers on the Scientific Committee will be […]

Integral Theory Conference Follow-up Conference Recording Purchase the MP3 Recordings of ALL conference presentations, panels and keynote presentations (over 100 hrs of leading edge integral content!). $149. Product will ship in mid-September (allow up to 4 weeks for delivery). http://www.acteva.com/booking.cfm?bevaid=151100. JFK University Masters in Integral Theory Fall 2008 Cohort of Online Certificate and Masters in Integral […]

First Biennial Integral Theory Conference, Concord, California, USA – SOLD OUT!!! The European membership of the European Society for Research in Adult Development Spiral Dynamics integralTrain-the-Trainer Auditions, British Columbia, Canada, October 2008 Australia, Integral Training & Development Programs Launch VI Integral Conference in Spain, 17th and 18th of October, 2008 Center for Integrative Leadership, University of […]

Integral Leadership in Action 2008 Event is ON! Save the Dates!! In partnership with the Boulder Center for Integral Living (http://bcil.gaia.com) in Boulder,Colorado! The 3rd Integral Leadership in Action Conference 2008 ILIA Collaborative: Leading from Goodness, Truth, and Beauty   Main Event: Thursday Eve October 9 through Sunday October 12 Featuring Steve McIntosh, author of Integral Consciousness and the […]

January 2008 Issue of Integral Leadership Review Integral Leadership in the Netherlands This issue will feature and almost completely Dutch issue with articles and interviews all focused on integral and developmental approaches and perspectives from the Netherlands. Alain Volz, Co-director of the Center for Human Emergence in the Netherlands, is our guest editor. Stay tuned!!! […]

 and organize V INTEGRAL CONFERENCE OCTOBER 20th y 21st Tibetan House Exampla-Barcelona SPAIN Program in Spanish This year: Upper Left Quadrant (ULQ)+ Integral Practice Application: Workshops The two days Conference will be broadcasted to all the Spanish speaking countries through the Internet. SATURDAY- OCTOBER 20TH (Morning) 9,30: OPENING OF THE CONFERENCE: Raquel Torrent. Madrid Psychiologist, therapist, […]

Life Lessons for Leaders is scheduled for publication in 2008 and is accepting submissions of true leadership stories to be included in the book. With a first printing of 500,000 copies, this book is part of the widely acclaimed Chicken Soup for the Soul series. The “Life Lessons” books are different from the typical Chicken Soup book in […]

International Leadership Association International Leadership Association’s Calendar of Leadership Dates and Events For an excellent source for leadership conferences Integral Leadership Review recommends: http://www.ilanet.org/Calendar/View_Month.asp?EventMonth=3&EventYear=2007 Promotions by publishers, developers and others providing products and services related to leadership. Adizes Institute The 29th International Adizes Convention July 1 to July 3 (closed session for qualified and certified associates) July […]

Notes, Conferences, Workshops and Letters Bureau Chief/Associate Editor The Integral Leadership Review is pleased to announce that it has begun filling positions as Bureau Chief/Associate Editor. We are looking for people in all major language groups who are interested in publishing in ILR, in finding appropriate materials from other authors, in providing information about leadership events in their […]

Notes: Resources Promote your leadership related events and publications here. It does not matter where in the world they will take place or are distributed from. We have readers in that region and/or who may be traveling there. We encourage you to send time-sensitive information to the Integral Leadership Review far enough in advance to be useful […]

Integral Notes In the current issue of this newsletter is an interview with Alan Mulally, CEO of Boeing Commercial Airplanes Subscriptions to this newsletter are also available. http://kaipagroup.com/newsletter/June2006_newsletter.html ^––––––– ^ Generating Transformative Change in Human Systems, beginning October 2, 2006. For those who are ready to transform their lives and their work, with an on-going, […]

If you or your organization will be holding an event of interest to the readers of this eJournal, please submit your information toruss@integraleadershipreview.com. Information should be submitted sufficiently in advance to meet our publication dates. ^––––––– ^ Integral Review Volume 2, 2006 has just published. Table of Contents Editorial Another Step: The Evolution of Integral […]

Kripalu Institute for Integrated Leadership in Lennox, MA. The Institute for Integrated Leadership’s new Semester Intensive is an immersion program specifically designed for 18- to 25-year-olds. Today, more than ever, the world needs the perspective, power, and passion of young adults who can influence change and make a significant, positive impact in our increasingly complex […]

Alchemist at Work: Two Sessions with Bill Torbert, A Review by Russ Volckmann Mike Ginn: A Report on the Integral Institute’s Presidents’ Circle Meeting John Provost: Going Deeper into Integral Life Practice Susann Cook-Greuter: Development Intensive For Professionals Mike Jay’s new book: CPR for the Soul Leadership Development Framework: Bill Torbert and Associates Spiral Dynamics Integral Praxis: Applying […]

ARINA: Filling A Void in Individual & Social Efforts Sara Ross In writing this introduction, I picture us walking along a cyber path toward ARINA’s entrance. I use our brief walk to share why you will find an unusually diverse yet quite coherent set of opportunities when you enter. I remember, as I grew up, having […]

Adizes Graduate School is offering a three-day Adizes BTP(Breakthorough to Prime)-March 3-5, 2005-seminar and a six-day Spiral Dynamics seminar-March 7-12, 2005 – both live in Santa Barbara, California. http://www.adizes.com/Insights16/04.htm Additional 2005 Spiral Dynamics Training and Public Events Schedule All SDi workshops and other learning events are presented by Dr. Don Beck, assisted by close colleagues in […]

Integral Organizational Leadership Here is the workshop many of you may have been waiting for. Here is Integral Leadership as applied to organizational life in our times. The faculty is a solid in-crowd from the Integral Institute and all of them are active in applying integral concepts in consulting, training, coaching, and/or executive education. If […]

Significant Journal Spirituality & Reality, New Perspectives on Global Issues Nancy B. Roof is the editor of this journal, published Friends for a New Civilization. Their mission is “Contributing to the enhancement of the quality of life and to the humanization of global relations through the promotion of spiritual values.” Volume II, Number 2, March […]

Global Integral Research, Inc Presents: The Wade Mindsets Leadership Development Program, Jenny Wade Ph.D. This two-day workshop is a certification program in the Wade Mindsets System for Leadership Development. This unique approach is based on adult developmental psychology and how it affects: The way people think The environment and work they prefer How they relate […]

Global Integral Research, Inc. Presents: The Wade Mindsets Leadership Development Program, Jenny Wade Ph.D. This two-day workshop is a certification program in the Wade Mindsets System for Leadership Development. This unique approach is based on adult developmental psychology and how it affects: The way people think The environment and work they prefer How they relate […]

First Integral Academic Program? I came across this on the web. Anyone know who is spearheading this? I know that The Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado has been doing integral classes, but this is the first “high level” program, particularly for executives, offered by a major university that I have seen. www.nd.edu/~execprog/programs/cil Executive Integral Leadership […]

Bay Area Coaches Conference – June 8-9, 2001 Coaches@Work Russ Volckmann will present on June 9 from 9 to 11 am. “Coaching Business Leaders: An Integral Approach”, www.BayAreaCoaches.org Join coaches throughout the San Francisco Bay Area for the first Bay Area Coaching Conference – Coaches@Work! Four ICF chapters have joined together to create this exciting learning […]

An Invitation, March 2001 Do you want to understand more about the relationship between the needs of executives and how coaching can support those needs. So do I. Warren Bennis stated in a speech last year that the integral approach to organizations and management is the wave of the future. This is the direction the […]

Congratulations!!! About the first of the year, the Integral Leadership Review invited readers to submit their nominations for the best publication on leadership in the year 2008. We are pleased to announce the publication identified for the Second Annual Reader’s Choice Award. David Day, Michelle M. Harrison, and Stanley Halpin. An Integrative Approach to Leader Development: Connecting Adult […]

About the first of the year, the Integral Leadership Review invited readers to submit their nominations for the best publication on leadership in the year 2007. We received numerous responses. Remarkably and quite a surprise to us, with two exceptions all of the nominations were for one publication. Therefore, we are pleased to announce the publication identified […]

Eric Reynolds I came across a short 2017 article from the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian. It relates how the winter solstice marks the beginning of a season of storytelling and ceremony. I would like to honor that, with a bit of storytelling of my own, to be offered as a reflection of what […]

Mark McCaslin “In the final analysis, we count for something only because of the essential we embody, and if we do not embody that, life is wasted.” – C. G. Jung This much I know to be true, the easiest way to cripple a person for life is to make them blind to their greatest […]

Mark McCaslin The original idea I had held for this piece was to begin to engage our readers around the notion of sustainability. Many of you are aware of our ongoing conversations concerning how we sustain the current efforts being made to create the Integral Leadership Review. Before going further I, for one, celebrate the […]

How can we not think about transitions at this time of year? We have just gone through the transitions of the Mayan calendar to a new era. And we have transitioned into the beginning of a new year according to the Gregorian calendar. In a week from writing this we have a full moon in […]

The New York Times published an article on September 20, 2012, by Sabrina Tavernise: Life Spans Shrink for Least-Educated Whites in the U.S. The life expectancy for black women who had not graduated from high school surpassed white women of similar standing. As for the other sex, ”White men lacking a high school diploma lost […]

I am old enough to have lived and worked through most of the years of the Human Potential Movement. This was a period that saw the establishment of the Esalen Institute, the rising popularity of a wide range of therapies from gestalt to transactional analysis, to neoReichian body therapies and Rolfing, to sensory awareness and […]

I think we all get that we are but miniscule elements in a vast universe, perhaps but one universe among many. Perhaps this sense of awe underlies much of spiritual and religious practices around the world. I was recently reminded of this provoker of humility by this photograph.  Source: Nasa  http://www.acienciasgalilei.com/program/fondosescrt/saturno4-cassini-800.htm If you look very, […]

Ken Wilber, Stuart Brand and the Engineering of the Future with a Call to Action On the Integral Life website there is the “Loft Series,” a set of questions and answers between Ken and some individuals who have gone through the Core Integral program basic course. Two of these questions drew my attention: Q2: How […]

  Do you think you can just take over the universe and improve it? I do not believe it can be done The Universe is sacred You cannot improve it If you try to change it, you will ruin it. If you try to hold it, you will lose it. So sometimes things are ahead […]

What has Steve Jobs got to do with Integral Leadership, you ask? I am not sure I can fully answer that nor do I want to take the time now to do so. The point is that Steve Jobs is dead. This man touched the lives of so very many of us, even those of […]

The State of Integral Russ Volckmann As some of you may remember I did an interview in the October 2010 issue of Integral Leadership Review with Ken Wilber on the state of integral work in the world. We (or should I say, I) only scratched the surface of this topic. The Integral Leadership Collaborative Conference […]

Local Politics and

Reflections on Guggenbhul-Craig’s Power in the Helping Professions. Recently, Jeannie and I had the pleasure of being the guests of Don Benson and Helen Spector (Benson) while they were vacationing in Sedona, Arizona. Don is a much-ion-demand consultant on supply change management, as well as an innovator and entrepreneur. In addition, he is probably the […]

  “Coda can denote any concluding event, summation, or section.” – From Wikipedia 1. (Music / Classical Music) Music the final, sometimes inessential, part of a musical structure. 2. (Literary & Literary Critical Terms) a concluding part of a literary work, especially a summary at the end of a novel of further developments in the […]

PhilosopherNotes Brian Johnson, founder of Zaadz, the popular integrally informed social networking site (which he later sold to Gaia and they have shut it down) went to Bali and developed an online series, PhilosopherNotes (http://www.philosophersnotes.com/). Now those notes are available in print and audio files. Here is the way this material is presented: Brian Johnson’s […]

Christopher Meyer and Julia Kirby in Harvard Business Review; Ian I. Mitroff and Abraham Silvers, Dirty Rotten Strategies Are the times really changing or is it same ‘ole, same ole…’? Is there hope for progress in confronting the challenges we face in the world or have the French had it right all along (as I […]

Reflections on Power, Love, Don Beck and Rugby in South Africa Adam Kahane. Power and Love: A Theory and Practice of Social Change. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler, 2010. Hot off the presses! An impressive new book by consultant Adam Kahane on the relationship between power and love in change processes! This is an important topic for […]

Much of the attention on integral development has the focus on individual development. We have programs and practices for attending to cognitive and emotional development, as well as attending to physical development (through variations on the martial arts and other physical activity), and meeting aspirations for spiritual development, albeit still a question of whether that […]

Recently, John Rowan posted a piece of his on dialectical thinking on the London integral listserve, apiece he had published as “Dialectical Thinking and Humanistic Psychology,” Practical Philosophy, 3/2, July 2000, pp. 18-21. It would probably not be appropriate for me to reproduce that post here, but here are some highlights that include some of my […]

Jurriaan Kamp interview Ken Wilber “Speaking in Tongues,” Ode Magazine, April 2009 Jurriaan Kamp is the editor of Ode, a magazine “for Intelligent Optimists” it proclaims on the cover. This special issue focuses on “Travel for a Small Planet,” turning tourism into life and economy enhancing activities. Structured in the mode of other popular magazines these […]

If you are anything at all like me, even a smidgen (a small bit), some changes just come very hard in your life. I know that quitting smoking was like that for me, until the day I just did it cold turkey twelve years ago (after decades of smoking) and haven’t had a cigarette since; […]

Top Ten Forecasts for 2009 and Beyond http://www.wfs.org/Sept-Oct08/Nov-Dec, FUTURIST/topTen.htm Each year since 1985, the editors of THE FUTURISThave selected the most thought-provoking ideas and forecasts appearing in the magazine to go into our annual Outlook report. Over the years, Outlook has spotlighted the emergence of such epochal developments as the Internet, virtual reality, and the end […]

Paul Ekman and Daniel Goleman, Knowing our Emotions, Improving Our World Facial Action Coding System is a computer automated research tool for studying facial expressions and emotions. It is being deployed against terrorism in health care and a wide variety of other contexts, particularly through the identification of emotions related to lying. Six emotions have […]

The World is in crisis. No, I didn’t say the world was going to come to an end on New Years Day. Or that there is some kind of huge spiritual event that will transform us… Rather, as the readers of this journal are no doubt aware, it just seems like the number and levels […]

It is with extreme humility that I undertake the following comments on Ken Wilber’s excerpts for Kosmos 2, the next volume in his trilogy, that can be found at http://wilber.shambhala.com/: Introduction to Excerpts from Volume 2 of the Kosmos Trilogy; Excerpt A: “An Integral Age at the Leading Edge”; Excerpt B: The Many Ways We Touch: Three Principles […]

Chris Laszlo, Sustainable Value: How the World’s Leading Companies Are Doing Well by Doing Good with a Foreword by Patrick J. Cescau, Group Chief Executive Office, Unilever, Stanford, CA, US A: Stanford University Press, 2008. Chris Laszlo has produced a truly remarkable book. I am so impressed that I hope every reader ofIntegral Leadership Review will find a way to […]

Susanne Cook-Greuter, Introduction to Ego Development…a series of videos on stages of adult development, IntegralNaked,http://in.integralinstitute.org/live/view_cook-greuter.aspx There are seven segments of this presentation at an Integral Institute workshop. The opportunity to download these very well presented introductions to her highly important work on development and its applications is well worth the price of admission for a one […]

Ori Brafman and Rod A. Beckstrom, The Starfish and the Spider: The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations. New York: The Penguin Group, 2007. Like the brain where memories are not stored in hierarchies but in networks, distributed structures, human systems sometimes are formed without hierarchy, where no one is in charge. “You’d think that there would […]

Riane Eisler, The Real Wealth of Nations, San Francisco, Berrett-Koehler, 2007. If you are not familiar with Riane Eisler’s work and her contrasting dominator with partnership models you could go back to her original work, The Chalice and the Blade, or to her books on Partnering. However, it you are interested in a system-level application of […]

Don Beck and Doug Kruschke, Spiral Dynamics Integral: A Challenge to Leadership, Clearfire Media DVD, 2006.http://www.clearfiremedia.com In slightly more than two hours (longer if you check out all of the links and other material made available as you watch and listen to this program, Doug Kruschke facilitates Don Beck in laying out the story of Spiral Dynamics […]

Reflections on Reframing Complexity: Perspectives from the North and South, Fritjof Capra, Alicia Juarrero, Pedro Softolong and Jacco van Uden, eds. Mansfield, M A: ISCE Publishing, 2007. The relationship between integral theory and concepts and those found in complexity theory or other more recent applications of ideas from the quantum world is not readily apparent. A key concept from […]

Leadership and the Integral Leadership Review: Reflections on Kouzes and Posner, A Leader’s Legacy and a Presentation by Prasad Kaipa, “Leadership and the Being-Doing Gap” Please indulge me. I’m going to get a little personal here. I have been offering summaries of books and articles for several years in ILR. For the most part I have tried to […]

CODA: Keith E. Rice, Knowing Me, Knowing You: An Integrated SocioPsychology Guide to Personal Fulfillment & Better Relationships, Trafford Publishing, 2006 Here is a highly professional treatment of an approach to understanding ourselves and other people. The use of the term “SocioPsychology” serves as a clue that the author integrates the work of Clare Graves, Don […]

CODA: Brad Reynolds, Where’s Wilber At? Ken Wilber’s Integral Vision in the New Millenium St. Paul, MN, USA: Paragon House, 2006. Whether in conversations with individuals or in groups the question often arises as to whether there is one book that someone can read to get started understanding Ken Wilber’s work. I have heard people suggest […]

The editors have taken scraps of material and the products of extensive search efforts to assemble the pieces of this approximation of Clare Graves’ “last work.” Graves was injured in an accident and because of additional complications failed to finish the book. Working with a table of contents, Graves’ hand written notes and other material […]

Spiral Dynamics provides a developmental perspective that, when applied with an understanding of other variables, can be very, very useful. The problem is that, like any model or approach, it has been adapted or rigidified or just simply misunderstood. Below are descriptions of two invaluable tools for comprehending this useful perspective, this useful theory. Taken […]

CODA, Resilience, Leadership and Coaching Mike Jay, CPR for the Soul: Creating Personal Resilience by Design. Leadership University Press, 2006. It is probably going to become increasingly difficult to keep up with the literature based at least in part on integral theory, even when we are just concerned with leadership and related topics. Mike Jay’s latest is […]

On November 12, 2004, the day Yasser Arafat was buried in Ramallah, I landed in Ben Gurion airport. Ten days earlier I had watched a team of professional movers disassemble my cozy Manhattan apartment and stuff the contents into 117 cardboard boxes bound to follow me across the Atlantic to my new home, Tel Aviv. […]

In his introduction to the first issue of The International Journal of Servant-Leadership, editor Larry Spears of Gonzaga University clearly lays out the essence of Servant Leadership and the work of those who have built upon Robert Greenleaf’s 1970 essay :The Servant as Leader.” He notes that there have been hundreds of books and artic […]

On July 7th Colin Morley, a marketer, who used his experience to make a real difference in the world and who touched lives all over the world-a leader, in other words-with his involvement in the Be the Change movement and the London SDi group, was killed by a terrorist bomb while riding a tube on […]

A newsletter about participation in multiple worlds, multiple visions, but one humanity ; a monitor of P2P developments ISSUE 65: April 20, 2005 If you would place explanatory theories about the evolution of matter/life/ consciousness into two axes, one defined as the “relative attention given to either the parts or to the whole” and another […]

Remember all of that work that has been done to propagate the idea that the culture of a company and its people count? And remember all of those reports of near death experiences and the visions that people have? Well, George Stalk doesn’t put the lies to those, but he does challenge our images about […]

Here is an example of the use of simulations in business as a learning device. It suggests to me that this is an important approach to development that relates directly to an integral perspective. The source of this information is: Reworking Intuition: Business simulations spark rapid workplace renovations Bruce Bower www.sciencenews.org/articles/20041023/bob8.asp Peter Senge is reported to […]

Fifty participants, a dozen staff and Ken Wilber– all of the makings of a truly unique learning experience as CEOs, coaches, consultants, academics mingled to explore this elusive topic of the application of integral theory and practice to leadership in organizations. Virtually everyone left feeling they had gotten something of value; some left feeling that […]

Leadership, as has been preached in these pages for some time now, is about the individual and the context. It is about an emergence of individuals from context to demonstrate leadership. One of the things that I have not focused on very much is the traits or qualities individuals bring to these leader moments. I […]

The 100 book project on Integral Leadership A Call for Contribution Thierry C. Pauchant www.leadergraphies.com Abraham Lincoln defined leadership as a growth process – a course of development and maturation – which encourages people to act from “the better angels of their nature”. Nelson Mandela, the Dalai Lama, Mother Teresa, Eleanor Roosevelt, Martin Luther King, […]

David Gergen, “Stubborn Kind of Fellow,” COMPASS: A Journal of Leadership,” Center for Public Leadership, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, Volume I, Number 1, Fall 2003. In this article by a well-informed companion of many presidents, comes from the pen of the Director of the Center for Public Leadership. Note that the article […]

Sara Ross , “A Developmental Approa A: Integral Public Practice For Complex Public Issues” Sara Ross has been concerned with community development for a number of years. She has brought her integral perspective to this challenge in her work independently and with the Kettering Foundation. She states, “Public processes are integral when they aim public attention at […]

Sara Ross, “A Developmental Approach : Integral Public Practice For Complex Public Issues” Sara Ross has been concerned with community development for a number of years. She has brought her integral perspective to this challenge in her work independently and with the Kettering Foundation. She states, “Public processes are integral when they aim public attention at the […]

Melvin E. Miller and Susanne R. Cook-Greuter, eds. Creativity, Spirituality, and Transcendence: Paths to Integrity and Wisdom in the Mature Self, Stamford, Connecticut: Ablex Publishing Corporation, 2000. Creativity is an aspect of leadership in business and life. In this volume the editors have assembled a series of articles that focus on creativity in relation to […]

John Forman, Paul Landraitis, Steve McIntosh and Bert Parlee have published their new website http://www.integraldevelopment.com/ The site describes their business as follows: “Integral Development Associates (IDA) is a consulting firm specializing in the application of integral theory and practice to organizations and markets. As part of the growing worldwide integral movement, IDA has achieved significant results […]

Mary Hessler-Key, Ph.D. and Robin Wood, Ph.D., Developing Leadership Capacity: Searching for the Integral A paper presented at the 1st International Conference on Integral Leadership, London, England, October 2002 Abstract: Leadership studies generally brush over the issues that differences in values and cultural relativism raise by defining the test of leadership as the achievement of […]

Stuart L. Hart and Clayton M. Christensen, “The Great Leap: Driving Innovation from the Base of the Pyramid,” MIT Sloan Management Review, Fall 2002, 44,1. This article represents a larger view of leadership, business leadership, in the sense of a system leading on a developmental edge in a way that transcends many of the issues we […]

From: Dr. Don Beck To: The Spiral Dynamics/Integral Community Friends, Below are the links to a 45-minute presentation on how Second Tier thinking (Yellow–Left Brain with feelings–and Turquoise–Right Brain with data) might approach the current interest in finding global, Integral solutions to the myriad of problems we face on planet Earth. You can access the […]

From: Dr. Don Beck To: The Spiral Dynamics/Integral Community Friends, Below are the links to a 45-minute presentation on how Second Tier thinking (Yellow–Left Brain with feelings–and Turquoise–Right Brain with data) might approach the current interest in finding global, Integral solutions to the myriad of problems we face on planet Earth. You can access the audio […]

Every now and again something happens that stirs a sense of awe in me. I tend to be stirred at a mundane level, at the level of human connection, action and achievement. While these certainly are infused with spirit, it is the manifest that first inspires awe in me. That is the feeling I had […]

For there to be effective coaching with integral leaders, it follows that we need to develop an approach that is, itself, integral. Much of the writing that is about Integral Leadership, including the coaching tips, in The Integral Leadership Review is intended to guide leaders who wish to take an integral approach to their work, organizations and […]

I find John Maxwell’s newsletter, LeadershipWired to be a continuing source of interesting presentations. This particular article relates to the notion of commitment in relation to purpose. Committing to the Commitment By Dr. John C. Maxwell At the age of 67, Thomas Edison watched as fire destroyed much of his work and equipment. Time to retire? Time […]

David Kirkpatrick, “ Net Gains for the World’s Poor”, Fortune, 4/2/02. What could be more of an example of Integral Leadership than building a system that uses technology to link people and capital the world over to support developmental projects and small businesses get started among the world’s poor? Such a project, initiated by two former […]

John Agno, “ Unintended Consequences of Performance Reviews” Positive organizational change doesn’t take place unless the employee buys into the new corporate culture’s intended conformity roles and behavior. The unintended consequences of a new employee evaluation system can send the company reeling. Last year, we witnessed how Ford Motor Company’s use of a new forced-ranking system […]

“Everything Tyrone O’Sullivan knows about leadership and management he learned at the coal face, at the pithead, and on the picket line. “Take your place in history. You’ve been given a unique part to play at a unique stage of your company’s history. Make the most of it. ‘No one could write a history of […]

Special Follow-up Review: Diversity and Top Management In the November 2001 issue of LeadershipOpportunity (New Name: Integral Leadership Review) I provided a summary of Kate Sweetman, “don’t Worry, Be Happy,” MIT Sloan Management Review, Fall 2001. That article included a summary of findings from another article (Sigal G. Barsade, et al, “To Your Heart’s Content: A Model of Affective Diversity in Top […]

The importance of loyalty in leader-follower relationships is not new. However, Frederick F. Reichheld has elaborated this idea in the Harvard Business Review (July-August 2001). He has identified six principles of loyalty that apply to leaders and to companies in general. As you read these, notice your reactions – thoughts, emotions, bodily sensations – any […]

R & D Invitation, July 2001 Thanks to those who have responded to the invitation to join an R&D project for about three months. I hope to get this started by the end of July. More information will follow. We need to understand more about the relationship between the needs of executives and how coaching […]

Which South Africa in 2010: A Successful Emerging Economy or an Increasingly Polarized Failing Society? by Alan Tonkin In considering the current situation in South Africa, two widely differing scenario’s can be drawn. The first is a successful emerging economy with major infrastructure expenditure for the forthcoming 2010 Soccer World Cup in June/July, 2010. The […]

Why Western Democracy Is Not a Global Notion: Required a Values Based System of Governance by Alan Tonkin Introduction The concept of “Western style democracy” is not a globally accepted notion as we see every day on the 24 hour international news channels as well as in the world’s press. This is because different societies […]

The South African Elections 2009: A Values Perspective An Introduction: In analysing the recent national and provincial election in South Africa it is intended to use the “values prism” to evaluate the results. Commentators from a wide variety of viewpoints have analysed the results with the one major missing element being that of values and worldviews. Dr. […]

In looking at our world with all its challenges in 2009 there are many opportunities for the better understanding of how “values” play a key role at all levels of our global society. At one end of the spectrum there is the global financial crises as well as the possibility of the nations of the […]

In considering the rapidly changing “Global Village” in which we live and the profound changes taking place in society at all levels, a key component of this change is the values mix experienced globally, as well as on a country by country basis. The recent publication of “Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World” produced by […]

The recalling of Thabo Mbeki the President of South Africa by the ANC National Executive marks a possible key turning point in the development of a flourishing democracy in South Africa. Although Mbeki, who was educated in the UK, has been seen as a supporter of policies supporting the development of a strong economy he […]

Introduction In considering the role of developing countries in the 21st Century there is little doubt that their position on the “values scale” largely determines their relative progress on the economic and social fronts. There are a number of global indicators that can be used including the “Failed States Index 2008” produced by www.ForeignPolicy.com and The Fund […]

“Values in Our Global Village – Different Values – Different Stages of Democracy” In looking at our “Global Village” from a systems perspective it is often unclear why different countries behave in different ways. This is particularly the case in the developed Western democracies who often believe that the majority of the population of our […]

Letters Hi Russ. I have just read your web site and recent interview with the authors of Leadership Agility. A Conversation with Bill Joiner and Steve Joseph. I really enjoyed it and kept wondering of course if I had attained their ultimate level of leadership Agility…(It’s now 5am here in Sydney and my birthday June […]

Greetings Russ, …I was a student of Joe Rost (1995-97) at USD. Joe just forwarded to me a link to your interview with him…it was great! Congrats!… I also note in your journal, you had Denny Roberts write a nice note about Rost’s influence at the University of Miami-Ohio. I wanted you to know that my […]

In response to the Integral for the Masses column in the April 2005 issue of Integral Leadership Review: Being in the process to write an Integrally-informed thesis.it was a familiar experience, as well as an unpleasant one (to say the least) to read about the quibbles in circles supposedly integrally informed. Quibbling guys & dolls: please see the […]

Thanks for this news [ Integral Leadership Review, October 2002]. I’ve had a number of opportunities to interact with Mike Jay and he has a first class mind, with a depth of understanding of the dynamics of leadership. I strongly recommend that others read this interview. Also, the November 11, 2002 issue of BusinessWeek has an excellent feature […]

Russ, I just wanted to thank you for the great work you’re doing with your newsletter. The time is right for a new approach to leadership, and many of us are sensing the greater possibilities while we experiment with new approaches. It seems to me we need to emphasize the higher possibilities (creativity, vision, intuition) […]

Thanks for your consistent sharing of your e-journal! I appreciate it!! Russ, you might consider doing an article on why diversity is good business. The reality is that diversity does effect the bottom line. I personally go to businesses that represent the values that I hold, when I have a choice. Innovation, creativity and remaining […]

Keith E. Rice [Editors’s Note: This is a retrospective that seems appropriate to include in this special issue. Born in 2009, this Spiral Dynamics integral initiative with the formation of the Center For Human Emergence UK, has since lost some of its steam. Three of the key organizers, Keith Rice, Rosemary Wilkie and Lynne Sedgmore are no […]

Marc G. Lucas This article aims at providing a systematic overview of the concrete forms of appearance of and options for an emergent integral leadership research and related theory construction. First, the integral approach is described by its origin and validity claims. Then – in terms of a multi-theoretical approach – it is made available […]

Alexandre (Rico) de Faria Development takes place as people learn how to change/improve their daily actions/behaviour. Innovation takes place when the new behaviour results from a change in values and beliefs – that is, when change on the ground is not simply a superficial external behaviour but a reflection of an internal change in people’s […]

The Dialogical Journey Towards a Post-Conventional Resolution of Leadership Praxis by David Holzmer Union Institute and University Despite the ongoing growth and development of leadership theory–an evolution marked by increasingly nuanced and sophisticated conceptions of leadership practice–there exists, within the deep foundations of leadership’s unfolding narrative, a disquieting tension. It is an ideological divide, arising […]

Welcome Address in 2011 African Integral Development Network (AIDEN)/University of Calabar International Conference on the theme Advancing into the 21st Century: Exploring Best Approaches to Effective Leadership for Africa, at Channel View Hotel, MCC Road Calabar, Cross River State, Nigeria, November 16 – 18, 2011. Etim Omini, FCAI President, AIDEN Today, we hold the second […]

Lillian Enyang Oyama Introduction Integral Life practice (ILP), as the name implies entails a conscious performance of deliberately chosen activities aimed at enhancing one’s life in a more profound, meaningful, and fulfilling way.  These activities/practices are specifically targeted at the four primary dimensions of the individual being or whole person – body, mind, spirit, and […]

Oliver Ngodo November 2011 will go down as very significant in the history of Integral Movement globally. 16 – 18 of the month marked the graduation of the trainees of what may be one of the first formal and publicly acknowledged Integral Leadership Education Program in the world; certainly this is the first of its […]