FEATURED EVENTS

Fielding’s Institute For Social Innovation Presents: The Power of EGTL and Contributing Wisdom from the Tao and Nature

Wednesday, December 4

9:00 a.m. PST | 10 a.m. MST | 11 a.m. CST | Noon EST | 5 p.m. London

Thursday, December 5

1 a.m., Shanghai

Alums Kathleen Curran, Randal Joy Thompson, and Jane Feng will present their upcoming book and discuss why team-led Emergent Generative Team Leadership (EGTL) is the most effective approach to leading through complexity and how Tao’s worldview aligned with nature and seven mindsets are complementary to EGTL and help link East with West.

This presentation introduces a book in progress titled IGNITE: The Power of Emergent Generative Team Leadership and the Wisdom of the Tao. The book argues that Emergent Generative Team Leadership, a team-led leadership approach, is the most effective approach to deal with the complexity and rapid changes of the contemporary world and the requirement for organizations to be agile and adaptable. As a team-led leadership approach of autonomous teams, EGTL transforms team dynamics by harnessing the socio-emotional forces of intent, hope, care, and love. We explore the integration of Taoist philosophy with modern leadership, offering a holistic approach to leadership that emphasizes balance, interconnectedness, and the natural emergence of collective strength. The fundamental idea of Taoism is rooted in the premise of change, emergence, and generativity. Change is constant and emergent, like the ebb and flow of the tide. It is cyclical, like the four seasons. Emergence refers to the natural, spontaneous manifestation of phenomena. To address emergence requires Wu-Wei and Ziran. Generativity relates to the creative and nurturing aspects of the Tao. Tao in Taoism is the source of all life and existence, continuously generating and sustaining everything in the world without effort or intention.

Participants Will:

• Gain practical insights and tools for fostering resilient, interconnected, and adaptive emergent generative team-led teams capable of thriving in complex, uncertain environments.
• Understand harmony as the universal norm and the importance of the Taoist Wu-wei, non-action or effortless action, and ZiRan, spontaneity.
• Understand the importance of socio-emotional forces for team interconnectedness and the role that the seven Taoist mindsets can play.

About the Presenters

Dr. Randal Joy Thompson

Dr. Randal Joy Thompson is an international development professional Fellow of the Institute for Social Innovation Fielding Graduate University. Dr. Thompson has been leading inclusive inter-cultural and international teams for many decades and purposefully builds diverse and equitable teams in which team members have a strong sense of belonging. Her books include: 1) Embodied Somatic Leadership for Peacebuilding and Protest: Women’s Counteroffensive to Violence and Injustice (2024 forthcoming), co-edited with Lazarina Topuzova; 2) Changing Realities for Women and Work: The Impact of COVID-19 and Prospects for the Post-Pandemic Work World, co-edited with Chrys Egan and Tina Wu; 3) Reimagining Leadership on the Commons: Shifting the Paradigm for a More Ethical, Equitable, and Just World (2021), co-edited with Kathleen Curran and Devin Singh; Proleptic Leadership on the Commons: Ushering in a New Global Order (2020) that proposed a novel leadership model for the post-capitalist transition predicted by many scholars and social critiques. This was the first book on leadership on the commons; and 4) Leadership and Power in International Development: Navigating the Intersections of Gender, Culture, Context, and Sustainability (2018), co-edited with Julia Storberg-Walker. This book, which won the Human Resource Development R. Wayne Pace HRD Book of the Year Award, proposed the first theory of leading in international development. Dr. Thompson is currently co-editing the International Leadership Association’s Transformative Women Leaders series. Her co-editors are Chrys Egan and Dionne Rosser-Mims.

Dr. Thompson has researched and published several book chapters and peer-reviewed journal articles on leadership. The chapters of her book cover women leaders in Afghanistan, post-war Bosnia-Herzegovina, Myanmar, and Morocco. She holds a BA in Philosophy from the University of California, Berkeley, an MA in Philosophy and an MBA from the University of Chicago, an MA in Biblical Exposition from Capitol Seminary and Graduate School, and a PhD in Human and Organizational Behavior from Fielding Graduate University.

Dr. Kathleen A Curran

Dr. Kathleen A Curran is a global coach, facilitator, and boundary-spanning strategist. Founder of Intercultural Systems, with 25 years of professional experience in Asia, she specializes in catalyzing the intersection of intercultural competencies, leadership, and global strategy in support of individual, team, and organizational global leadership development with the concomitant inclusive mindset and practices. She is also a Fellow with the Institute for Social Innovation, Fielding Graduate Universities, where she engages with the relationship between the sense of belonging and the freedom to experiment and the alignment of external global corporate and internal functional strategies, which comprise the fully global corporation. Her published works include From Uncertainty to Transformation: Emergent Generative Team Leadership from the Void (2022), co-authored with R.J. Thompson, Reimagining Leadership on the Commons: Shifting the Paradigm for a More Ethical, Equitable, and Just World (2021), with Randal Joy Thomson and Devin Singh. The Study and Practice of Global Leadership (2022), edited by Gama Perucci; Leadership and Power in International Development: Navigating the Intersections of Gender, Culture, Context, and Sustainability (2018), co-edited by Thompson and Storberg-Walker; and Advances in Global Leadership, Vol 12 (2021).

Dr. Jane Feng

Dr. Jane Feng has been a Fellow of the Institute for Social Innovation at Fielding Graduate University since 2018. As a scholar-practitioner, she has worked in multinational settings for over 35 years as an internal HR/OD professional/executive in three US multinational corporations and an external OD consultant to US/German MNC clients. She is now a Regional Advisory Partner in August Leadership, a global search and leadership consulting firm headquartered in NY, USA.

Jane received training in Western OD traditions (e.g., NTL, Fielding). As a native Chinese who dances between Western and Eastern ways of thinking and working with MNC clients internally and externally, she has developed her own way of engaging Chinese wisdom in her practice. She has published seven articles summarizing her learning and explorations since 2017 in JABS/ODJ/ODR, of which two received the best/outstanding article award of the year: Practicing OD consulting in China: Engaging the roots of Chinese culture with five maxims (ODJ Best Article of 2021 Award), and Applying the Taoist way of thinking in dialogic consulting: Following the client’s way with three maxims (2023 OD Network Award for Outstanding Article of the Year).