Diverse futures beyond the human? – A Futures Leadership Challenge

Diversity has been a significant challenge for both leadership and futures studies for quite some time (Mengel, 2021; Slaughter & Hines, 2020). It has been addressed by a variety of approaches like “Intercultural leadership” and “Inclusive Leadership” (Northouse, 2021), focusing on diversity management and the role leadership can play in co-creating a vision for inclusive organizations. What is largely missing to date is an even more inclusive understanding of diversity, recognizing the importance of ecology, the environment, and various intelligences (cognitive, emotional, spiritual, artificial, futures, etc.) and discussing the potential roles and contributions of these perspective/dimensions for co-creating truly inclusive futures.

In this interactive virtual panel, three scholars and practitioners of futures studies and leadership from Australia, Canada, and the US explore some of these perspectives, including the human and beyond. First, we will discuss broader definitions of diversity and the role “Artificial Intelligence futures” can play in this context. Second, we will investigate how a broad concept of spirituality connecting the human, nature, and the universe can enhance the intercultural dialogue and respective ontologies and epistemologies. Third, we explore what a diverse and inclusive, values- and futures-oriented leadership could look like and how it can help co-creating meaningful futures together.

Our presentation is based on our (and others’) collaborative work, resulting in the recently published book: Mengel, T. (2021; ed.). Leadership for the Future: Lessons from the Past, Current Approaches, and Future Insights. Newcastle upon Tyne, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. https://www.cambridgescholars.com/product/978-1-5275-7059-7.

Panelists: Thomas Mengel (chair), University of New Brunswick, Canada; Elissa Farrow, About Your Transition, Australia; Antonio Jimenez Luque, University of San Diego, USA.