Exploring the Connections among Adaptive Leadership, Facets of Imagination and Social Imaginaries

Abstract

This article explores the relationship between leadership as adaptive work and different forms of social consciousness, and between leadership and alternate facets of imagination. It argues that nongovernmental and government leaders typically are enjoined either to support or to challenge existing imaginaries at different levels of analytic aggregation — social, community, interorganizational and organizational — and that they routinely employ different dimensions of imagination to do so. These include aesthetic, cognitive, affective and moral imagination. The essay concludes with a brief overview of the implications of the argument for leadership practice.

Cultivating Leadership Imagination with Cognitive Tools: An Imagination-Focused Approach to Leadership Education

“…Addressing that imperative requires strong cognitive reasoning. (Stephenson, 2009, p. 427) This broad understanding is a practice of identifying individual pathways on an overall map of an organization's landscape (Stephenson, 2009). Table 1 offers examples of cognitive tools that school leaders can employ to engage imagination in understanding the processes and policies shaping their school communities, understanding themselves as leaders, and understanding community needs.…”

“…Effective leaders are able to fit their own sense of the world or context with those of the others they serve and the collective "imaginary." Stephenson's (2009) work suggests that self-knowledge provides a strong foundation for empathizing and knowing others as well as enables more global awareness of multiple perspectives. Stephenson (2009) suggests imagination is required by leaders to understand the "social imaginaries" held by people in their organizations/communities.…”

Conceptualizing imagination in the context of school leadership

“…Imagination is what allows human beings to understand, shape and tell stories (Asma, 2017 (Hopkins, 2019), Rob Hopkins suggests that all great movements involve people who are able to create and sustain a vision of the world they want, tell stories about it, and bring forward leaders who are able to make that vision a collective one, such that it becomes a powerful narrative -and a powerful counter-narrative to cynicism and despair. (p. 106) Through story, we make sense of ourselves -our worldviews -and the worldviews of those we lead (Barlosky, 2005;Stephenson, 2009). We know our own stories and we seek to understand the stories of those in our communities.…”

“…Based on this analysis, I propose a definition of imagination that picks up the notion of 'possibility' that is already prevalent in the leadership field (Beghetto, 2018;Cranston & Kusanovich, 2014;Greene, 1995;Spehler & Slattery, 1999;Stephenson, 2009). Egan's detailed definition of imagination is one such conception that focuses on possibility.…”

“…For example, even though the word imagination is used in association with affective leadership (Staunaes, 2011), esthetic leadership (Jones, 2002;Steffensen, 2012), artful leadership (Klein, 1999), invitational leadership (Ciulla, 2015), servant/steward leadership (Jones, 2002), visionary leadership (Ylimaki, 2006) and leadership education (Kliewer & Zacharakis, 2015), the concept remains largely unexamined. Only a few scholars examine imagination and investigate its varied roles in the context of leadership, educational leadership and leadership education (see, for example, Ciulla, 2015;Curtis & Cerni, 2015;Curtis et al, 2017;Steffensen, 2012;Stephenson, 2009;Wenger, 1999).…”