Transdisciplinarity: The Dynamic Future of Exemplary Leadership

Introduction

Leadership, at its best, is transdisciplinarity in action. As both an art and a science, leadership is a phenomenon of the present with a lasting impact on the future. Leadership, at its best, inspires innovation and creativity, catalyzes committed action, and sources results while nurturing the human spirit. Leadership, at its best, demonstrates the power of synergistic disciplines. Transdisciplinarity enables leaders to expand their impact far beyond conventional paradigms. Transdisciplinarity aims to improve futures and to bring about much-needed solutions to persistent problems and challenges.

According to Northouse (2018), leadership is aimed at influencing followers through the action of communication in the aim of attaining particular goals. Bolman and Deal (2017) posit that leaders create visions of future states and bring them to reality through others. Transdisciplinarity, according to Klein and Macdonald (2002), fuels leadership as it is strongly oriented towards creating different prospects—futures generated by improving choices, heightening reflexivity and inclusivity, generating new languages, designing new structures, devising new pluralistic and more complex knowledge cultures.

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Exemplary leaders embrace transdisciplinarity for themselves and build within their organizations a culture of transdisciplinarity. This orientation impacts workplaces and the results produced are often transformational. Knowing becomes understanding and generates new ways of being grounded in wisdom and higher consciousness (Klein, 2015). Also, transdisciplinarity is exponentially powerful when it is embraced as an ongoing approach or process, not as an end in itself but rather fuel for the future.

According to researcher and scholar Dr. Victor Wang (2019), transdisciplinarity in theory, research and practice refers to that which is done across the disciplines, between the disciplines, and beyond and outside all disciplines. The traditional methods of viewing the world through the scientific approach, instrumental knowledge, discipline specific paradigms do not adequately serve the needs of theory, research, and practice within an increasingly complex world. Through transdisciplinary theory, research and practice, we focus on a new form of learning and problem solving that meets the complex challenges of society at all levels. This gives credence to Albert Einstein's view, “Imagination is more important than knowledge. For while knowledge defines all we currently know and understand, imagination points to all we might yet discover and create” (Kline, 2017).

Transdisciplinarity is an apparent phenomenon, which identifies a clear foundation of a new and much-needed way of carrying out different strategies. This goes beyond the dualism of conflicting ideas (Klein, 2017). In leadership, transdisciplinarity forms one of the basic rules that enables individuals to carry out their roles. It is oftentimes radical as it requires a self-inquiry, mindfulness and a depth of awareness that fosters growth of the mind, heart and spirit in an individual.

Most leadership theories focus on behaviors and styles. We see transdisciplinary leadership to be a matter of heart and spirit and not just the mind itself as referred to by many researchers. Specifically, we consider the true work of a leader includes nurturing the human spirit (Bernstein, 2015). Nurturing the human spirit often manifests through transformational leadership, resonant leadership, and transcendent leadership. All of these exemplify transdisciplinarity.