A New Lens for Leadership Education: Developing Agency and Effective Decision-Making in the Face of Counter-Reality

Abstract

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

Leadership as Agency

“…Hence, the most influential leaders of tomorrow will not only seek to solve the problems discovered in the organization, but seek to find sustainable solutions to future issues. Through agency they can develop new perspectives in leadership that enhance their ability to find, understand, and address complex issues (Andenoro et al, 2019). Stones (2005) argues that an agency is defined as the capacity to take action.…”