Professor Alex Haslam proposes that effective leadership is grounded in leaders’ capacity to embody and promote a sense of social identity that they share with others—a process of identity leadership. He argues that leadership is the product not of ‘I-ness’ but of ‘we-ness’ that binds leaders and followers together.

This perspective sees leadership, motivation and influence not as processes that revolve around individuals acting and thinking in isolation, but as group processes in which leaders and followers are joined together—and perceive themselves to be joined together—in shared endeavour. But in order for this to succeed, leaders need to represent and champion the group and they also need to create and embed a sense of shared identity.

The seminar provided evidence of these processes in action and established the basis for a discussion about the implications for leadership of interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary projects, programs and research organisations.

The seminar by Professor Alex Haslam, Professor of Social and Organizational Psychology and Australian Laureate Fellow at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia, on “Effective organisational leadership and what it means for interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research organisations” was presented on December 2, 2021 as part of the NITRO-Oceania (Network of Interdisciplinary and Transdisciplinary Research Organisations in the Oceania region) seminar series. Videos from the series are hosted on i2S-Talks. The direct link to this hour long video is: https://youtu.be/9cy9OHjzSsE

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Posted: May 2023
Last modified: May 2023