A new model of giftedness for transformational active concerned citizenship and ethical leadership

Abstract

Individuals are typically identified as gifted largely on the basis of competence in limited contexts, but their performance in the real world, both as children and adults, often lags far behind their competence. Thus, the identification of the individuals as “gifted,” however useful in theory, is much less useful in practice. This article explains some of the reasons why people identified as gifted by competence often fail in their performance. In this article, I propose a transformational, T-ACCEL model of giftedness. In this model, it is important not only to become an active concerned citizen and ethical leader, but also to do so in a way that makes the world a better place—that makes a positive, meaningful, and possibly enduring difference to the world, not just to one’s national, or ideological, ethnic, racial, religious, or other group.