Get off the mountaintop and back in the marketplace: Leadership as transpersonal psychology’s highest calling

Abstract

Leadership since time immemorial has been considered a sacred calling, a spiritual and moral responsibility that attracted great thinkers from East and West. Only with the realpolitik of Macchiavelli, followed by industrialisation, did leadership theory become secular and transactional, a trend that lasted until the late 20th century. About the time transpersonal psychology emerged, sacred leadership was reclaimed and has dominated the past 50 years of the organisation behaviour and psychology literature. Four dominant models of spiritually–oriented leadership have emerged – servant leadership, transformational leadership, authentic leadership, and ethical leadership – with more proliferating every day. Despite William James’s and Abraham Maslow’s pointing the way for transpersonal psychology to engage with leadership as the fulcrum for social change, the field has yet to embrace this responsibility. The current state of leadership theory and research and the current state of the world represent great potential for transpersonal psychology, if the field is to remain relevant and make a vital contribution to the greater good.