Creating leadership collectives for sustainability transformations

Abstract

Enduring sustainability challenges requires a new model of collective leadership that embraces critical reflection, inclusivity and care. Leadership collectives can support a move in academia from metrics to merits, from a focus on career to care, and enact a shift from disciplinary to inter- and trans-disciplinary research. Academic organisations need to reorient their training programs, work ethics and reward systems to encourage collective excellence and to allow space for future leaders to develop and enact a radically re-imagined vision of how to lead as a collective with care for people and the planet.

A feminist ethos for caring knowledge production in transdisciplinary sustainability science

“…Individual self-care strategies, such as privately exercised mindfulness meditations or participation in time management workshops, might indeed reduce stress and improve mental health. However, they run the risk of solely placing responsibility on individual researchers to enact self-care and obfuscating structural barriers in academia (Care et al 2021 ; Fischer et al 2012 ). Structural barriers of academic institutions go beyond the reward and evaluation systems of researchers that most often foster individual and high-pace productivity, and include the lack of measures to establish a healthy work-life balance and a caring system for researchers (Sellberg et al 2021 ).…”

“…Disruptions not solely related to the Global pandemic can affect scientists with disabilities over time, affecting academic career progressions. A “rigid picture of ‘ideal academic’” (Brock 2021 ) is still in place and caring actions to switch “from metrics to merits” are crucial to stop re-enforcing unhealthy and unequal competition (Care et al 2021 ).…”

“…Also importantly, a feminist ethos of care practice reminds us that diversity is highly beneficial for academia (Schaal 2018 ) because it allows institutional progression and exclusion of traditional leadership models (Care et al 2021 ). As disability tends to be ignored when organizing conferences, workshops and meetings (Blackman et al 2020 ; Serrato Marks 2018 ), a caring sustainability science needs to consider accessibility as an essential component of the diversity strategy when organizing meetings (Goring et al 2018 ; Serrato Marks et al 2021 ).…”

“…Collective research practices grounded in a feminist ethos of care are capable of radically restructuring our academic institutions as nurturing working and learning environments. For example, in October 2019, the Care Operative started as a leadership collective experiment that aims to provide “a reflexive, inclusive and caring space for members as (they) pursue our mission to collectively explore, embody and lead transformational sustainability research and practice” (Care et al 2021 ). During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Care Operative has used virtual meetings to develop a collegial support system that allows the collective to provide peer support to deal with the challenges of care duties or conducting research in foreign contexts (Care et al 2021 ; The Care Operative 2020 ).…”

Co‐exploring relational heuristics for sustainability transitions towards more resilient and just Anthropocene futures

“…The practice of designing and convening 'transformative' meeting spaces for people to engage around a certain topic of interest or concern through participatory workshops, seminars, dialogues and immersive learning journeys can be seen as exploring ways of creatively creating spaces of 'relative stability' where participants can take time out of their normal schedules, patterns of engagement and action, to be challenged or affirmed, to connect with other bridge-builders, decision-makers or influencers, to pause and reflect and exchange ideas and experiences with each other (Care et al, 2021;Roux et al, 2020). Often during these events, participants feel that they are not alone in their journey to do something different in their organisations and that they find their own voices, get new ideas, connect with other influencers and learn new vocabularies and skills to make sense of their own contexts.…”