The flagship panel event opened the fifth in the University of Edinburgh’s Futures Conversations series and discussed key leadership themes around driving change, transparency, engagement, inclusion, trust, and purpose.

There is a distinction between leaders and leadership. The former conjures up the image of a single figure, a command-and-control top-down approach. The latter is broader and acknowledges different types of leadership. In the case of both leaders and leadership, there is a focus on powers, resources, and institutional parameters, but also on the traits or the characteristics required for good leadership. 

In recent turbulent times with polycrises, wicked and super wicked problems, there has been an emphasis on dealing with crises and long-term planning, both evident in demands of leadership during the recent pandemic. In the polycrises we are living, through current leadership strategies, of which there are many, we are grappling with problems of a magnitude and complexity not anticipated when some of these theories were first advanced. The combination of planetary, societal, health and economic challenges means that our future will be quite different from our past. 

There has been much analysis and discussion of leadership in various settings and for different purposes, but less effort to learn from and engage with this variety. As so often, our understanding is siloed. Honest and open debate – notably including failed leadership – that draws on this vast experience would allow us to learn across disciplines and settings. 

Our Futures Conversation seeks to explore what future leadership could look like. It will most likely be less about designing new theories, or developing new strategic approaches than putting into place plumblines that resonate with the global commons – the ambitions of the Sustainable Development Goals of a world where people and planet can thrive. These plumblines may well be around transparency, engagement, inclusion, trust, and purpose. How do leaders who bring about wholescale paradigm change bring others with them? What do we know of leaders who have created stability in periods of chaos, or leaders who have called out corruption which has been so embedded in the fabric of systems or cloaked in power that it is either invisible, or unbreakable? 
https://www.ed.ac.uk/events/lecture-series/edinburgh-futures-conversations/the-future-of-leadership