Background: Student leadership is central to the South African transformation agenda in higher education. Even so the understanding of student leadership, especially regarding its purpose and its implementation varies across contexts.Aim: This article aims to present propositions for student leadership practice considering the current diverse and often fragmented understanding of student leadership. Such propositions should aid the formation of a streamlined multi-levelled and systemic co-curriculum for student leadership that equips student leaders for their significant transformation task.Setting: The study was conducted in a South African higher education institution within the associated Student Affairs department. The university where data was collected is referred to as a historically White university.Methods: Social dream drawing was utilised to elicit data that enabled insights into student leadership. The data was analysed by pluralistically fusing discourse analysis with a psychodynamic interpretation.Results: The findings reveal a preoccupation in student leadership with South African historical narratives and the implications thereof for the present, and future, of the country. Additionally, student leaders indicated that there are complex psychological implications that result from their leadership experiences. Six propositions for student leadership are presented.Conclusion: The insights gained from the research study have the potential to contribute positively to higher education legislation and student development practice, particularly regarding the psychological conflicts that student leaders experience, and to the possible ways to resolve these. Because student leaders are key to the transformation agenda in South Africa, these insights can contribute directly towards their suitability in fulfilling this role.

Student leadership in South Africa is unsettled and characterised by unrest. The perturbing changes in the higher education system, including global shifts and crises, impact South African student leadership psychologically. Consequently, this article seeks to understand the system psychodynamics of South African student leadership. Data was collected during a social dream drawing (SDD) session with student leaders at a South African university before the onset of the Fees Must Fall movement. The SDD session aimed to understand the social construction of student leadership at a South African university and data was analysed through discourse analysis with a psychodynamic interpretation. For this article, a co-reflector was incorporated for secondary analysis after Fees Must Fall to reorganise, reinterpret the data and enhance the initial findings using a conflict, identity, boundaries, authority, role, task (CIBART) model. CIBART findings show that students have a need for a collective and shared vision, and find it unsettling when this need is not satisfied due to the complex environment. Thereby, their psychological safety is threatened, while anxiety is heightened in an environment characterised by transformation and decolonisation agendas. Substantial conflicts impact authority dynamics while, simultaneously, student leadership identity and boundaries are blurry and in crisis. Thus, the compromised clarity of student leadership elevates implications for the confidence that is required for the role and task of student leadership. Consequently, efforts to reduce the anxiety of student leadership ought to be a priority. Psychologists are indicated to play a crucial role in restoring the psychological safety and security of student leaders.

IntroductionCompassion can be viewed as a central gluing agent for the soul. Coupled with companionship toward a unique quality of listening, we call this companionate listening. South African student leaders' role is central to the decolonization and transformation of higher education based on the legacies founding these institutions. As such, a humanized practice that is centered on more emotional or virtue-embodied approaches than the traditional lens has been sought. This lens offers avenues for innovative, creative, and inclusive perspectives that promote compassion, social justice, and democracy.MethodsTo extend existing conceptualizations of compassion, this research uses social dream drawing to attain “companionate listening” as a means of exploring communication as “exquisite” empathy. Through psychoanalytic theory, companionate listening is theorized from observing the value of social dream-drawing research with South African student leaders.ResultsThe drawings show how assuming leadership roles re-ignites feelings and dream images of complex political, historical, social, cultural, and psychological South African intersections that emerge during South African student leadership.DiscussionIt is, therefore, concluded that innovative and inclusive research agendas into new horizons of forms of compassion, like social dream drawing in this research, are necessary within South African student leadership. Accordingly, through social dream drawing, compassionate listening facilitates a process of emotional growth toward an integrated self and group. This is because dreams allow the human capacity for connections that open space for compassion, enabling the feeling of relatedness and connection for student leaders that leads to the more impactful transformation of South African institutions.