What is it?

The purpose of the International Leadership Network is to promote mutual exchange and collaboration on research, training and education on issues of global and diverse leadership. It was formed to identify, support, and collaborate on advocacy, service, research, and teaching vis-à-vis leaders and leadership that is

  • Internationally Focused
  • Psychologically Minded
  • Ecologically Valid
  • Values Based
  • Impact Driven

As educators, scholars, practitioners, advocates, students, policy makers, and leaders, we strive to make a real difference in the real world, to promote transformative change and learning, always remaining mindful always of the needs, contributions, perspectives, and hopes of the many publics we serve, at home and abroad. We would examine leadership to conduct research and its application for policy and practice in contemporary society. We hope to develop a pipeline of culturally competent leaders—able to embrace diversity, be inclusive of cultural differences and world views, and to promote social justice issues when exercising leadership.

Whereas leadership theories have largely remained silent on issues of equity, diversity, and social justice, and most leadership studies have been Eurocentric and male dominant, we feel this network could foster collaboration on more inclusive, cross-cultural and diverse studies on leadership. By diversity, we refer to the variability among individuals and groups within society including social and cultural identities that often result in assigning social status and disparate power, privilege, and equity among and within different groups within societies. Issues of oppression, exclusion, discrimination and inequity may lead to oppressive leadership toward minority groups or non-dominant groups within and across societies. A diversity perspective acknowledges the multiple statuses and conditions people experience in a society while a global perspective involves becoming less ethnocentric in our understanding, access about the exercise of leadership that is collaborative, transnational and intercultural. A global perspective addresses cultural differences and similarities with and between societies and countries. Developing and fostering effective leadership within a rapidly changing global and diverse society means examining both micro issues related to leaders, followers, and organizations as well as macro issues related to society, to the discipline or beyond for the profession to remain viable.

What do we do?

First, we support and encourage our members to engage in a wide range of activities across the spectrum of career levels and disciplinary backgrounds that could include, but are not limited to development, dissemination, implementation, and evaluation of:

  1. models and methods of research and assessment regarding leaders, leadership, and organizations;
  2. curricula, programs, and experiences that cultivate mission-congruent leadership competencies for our students, colleagues, field, and profession;
  3. empirically and theoretically robust interventions regarding leadership development and organizational consultation;
  4. identifying, advocating for, and integrating psychological knowledge and expertise into emerging or established policies that leaders and organizations contemplate and enact;
  5. monitoring, refining, tracking, and reporting out the impact of our activities over time.

Second, we showcase such activities, as well as other exemplary approaches and perspectives of leaders and leadership across a wide range of scholarly, professional, policy-based, and real world forums and venues, at home and abroad. Our goal is to promote institutional and social change, to promote policy and action oriented application of our science and research.

Who are we?

The International Leadership Network represents a global coalition of psychologists and psychology student members along with affiliated interdisciplinary colleagues who share a commitment to our mission and an interest in our activities. Launched in 2016 within APA’s Division of International Psychology under Jean Lau Chin’s presidential initiative, the ILN is meant to be hosted by any organization(s) that shares a commitment to our mission and an interest in our activities.

When do we meet?

The forum first met in 2016 at the annual conference of the American Psychological Association under the Division of International Psychology. At the 2017 75th Annual Conference of ICP in New York City, we convened an International Research Exchange Forum. A working panel of 15 researchers agreed to form the International Leadership Network to promote collaborative research and exchange on global and diverse leadership. This forum was open to all ICP participants. During 2017-18, this group met virtually and developed a common research question and measures for a collaborative study. Qualitative interviews of diverse leaders from Canada, US, Australia, Iran will be among the narratives to be published in a book on Building Bridges to Inclusive Leadership through the Lens of Cultural Narratives.

Each year, the International Leadership Network intends to convene at least one face to face meeting of our members in an agreed upon forum in order to further our work, disseminate our findings, facilitate networking, and promote collaboration. Remote access to this meeting will be made available to those unable to attend in person.

We will once again convene a forum at the 2018 ICP conference: Human Rights, Dignity and Social Justice to be held in Montreal, Canada. In addition to our annual meeting, the ILN also supports virtual and in person meetings among our members as needed to encourage the ongoing development, pursuit, implementation, and evaluation of mission-congruent activities and goals on leadership.

Benefits for ICP members: Who can participate?

  • An annual forum will be convened at ICP’s annual conference to serve as a networking and collaborative function on global and diverse leadership. All ICP members and conference participants are welcome to join this group as collaborators or observers. We are planning to have virtual access to those unable to attend in person.
  • A Google Group convenes the researchers in the ILN together with Zoom meetings to meet about the collaborative research project in between the annual conference. This has been beneficial in promoting access to members from different parts of the world.
  • Webinars will be held to provide an opportunity for collaboration and to mentor junior colleagues interested in leadership. During 2017, we hosted 6 conversational hour webinars on topics such as: Diverse Leadership (Jean Lau Chin), Authentic Leadership and Values Orientation (Craig Shealy), Publications (Harold Takooshian and Uwe Gielen), Leadership in International Associations (Merry Bullock).
  • Publications—An immediate end product will be the opportunity for collaborators of the ILN to contribute to our book on Building Bridges to Inclusive Leadership through the Lens of Cultural Narratives or to a special journal issue on leadership. These are currently in progress, giving network members the opportunity to disseminate their work.

 

Contact Chair Jean Lau Chin