Jaap Geerlof is PhD candidate and currently writing a dissertation at the California Institute of Integral Studies on leadership and the emergence of a new world order. He is the co-founder and former CEO of a Dutch policy research and consultancy company in The Netherlands. He has conducted research in many fields of social and economic policy, has been an advisor of alderman of many cities and of several ministries in the Netherlands and a co-creator of transformations in the Dutch public administration.
The Awakening of the Soulful Leaders delivers a message of hope of a better world. Jaap Geerlof, ... more The Awakening of the Soulful Leaders delivers a message of hope of a better world. Jaap Geerlof, a former CEO, introduces a new vision on the type of leadership required in tomorrow’s world. Our world is changing rapidly and at the brink of the beginning of a new era. However, the present leadership is still based on a paradigm of a bygone era and thus not capable of solving the various crises our world is facing today, whereas the people in the street are progressively aware of an inevitable change. Our future leaders will have to be geared to guide the impending transformation. A transition that will not emerge automatically: future leadership requires an outright different set of core competences, which will have to be developed and trained.
Peter Hall introduced the concept of paradigm shifts into the public policy discourse. His accoun... more Peter Hall introduced the concept of paradigm shifts into the public policy discourse. His account explains the seismic transition the world experienced in the 1980s. With this neoliberal paradigm the former social contract between the public leadership and the people unraveled and the future of humanity has been put at risk. To steer humanity back in the direction of a sustainable future, the author argues for a participatory public policy paradigm instituted as a reinvention of Rousseau’s social contract theory with tree distinct features that respond to the complexity of life in modern times.
Despite decades of warnings by pandemic risk experts, COVID-19 took most of our leaders by surpri... more Despite decades of warnings by pandemic risk experts, COVID-19 took most of our leaders by surprise. Expert advice went largely unheeded, leaving most of our leaders ill-prepared for this pandemic and its civilizational impact. The inaptitude of leadership to deal with crises is not a new phenomenon; however, it is inextricably linked with a worldview, leadership presence, and policy agenda grounded in paradigmatic thinking in terms of order, stability, predictability, and gradual progress. These old orthodoxies are fading and should be replaced with a leadership presence based on complex thinking, humility, and a recognition of the transitional nature of our times. In this article, the author explains this novel transformative leadership presence.
Our home country, The Netherlands, seems to be a fertile ground for self-organizing organization... more Our home country, The Netherlands, seems to be a fertile ground for self-organizing organizations and is an incubator for researchers that are interested in the topic of leadership and self-organization. Scientific literature unveils that the question of leadership of self- organizing organizations is surrounded by controversy. Some scholars interpret the emergence of self-organizations as the starting point of leaderless organizations, others emphasize its emanation as a opportunity for coaching leadership styles. We posit that the zeitgeist is ripe for the unfoldment of new organizational model, like self-organizing organizations, and a new kind of leadership. Complexity theory offers a promising epistemology for the leadership in self-organizing organizations, because it offers a more dialogic framework for understanding the desired leadership presence, and of the context within which leadership is embedded. In general the importance of the context within which self-organizing organization emerges is neglected in most of the literature on self-organization and leadership. An analysis of the Dutch situation emphasizes that the specificity of context determines and nourishes the potential for self-organizing organizations and invites a kind of leadership that enables supportive, complex and adaptive behavior.
The complexifying world places contemporary leaders for major challenges in leading organizations... more The complexifying world places contemporary leaders for major challenges in leading organizations. The progressive complexity of the organizational and social context often surfaces as paradox. Surprisingly, paradoxes are hardly addressed in leadership epistemology, or in leadership development models. Contrarily, management and organizational science scholars have embraced the necessity to engage paradox in the workplace. The negation of paradoxes in most leadership theories stems from the axiology of positivism in which most traditional leadership theories are grounded. The theory of transformative leadership was one of the first epistemologies that recognized the existence of paradoxes in leadership practice. More specifically, transformative leadership addressed the leadership– follower paradox. Complexity theory as Edgar Morin has described offers a promising epistemic framework for the interpretation of paradoxes in concord with leadership development. Complexity-based leadership epistemology not only acknowledges paradoxes, but also interprets them as powerful sources of leadership transformation. A pivotal lesson that springs from complexity theory and the paradoxical nature of leadership is that leadership development is an integral and emerging process that spans the conscious and subconscious part of the human faculty. It calls for a multi-level understanding of the relations within and between the individual, the organization, and society at large.
The Awakening of the Soulful Leaders delivers a message of hope of a better world. Jaap Geerlof, ... more The Awakening of the Soulful Leaders delivers a message of hope of a better world. Jaap Geerlof, a former CEO, introduces a new vision on the type of leadership required in tomorrow’s world. Our world is changing rapidly and at the brink of the beginning of a new era. However, the present leadership is still based on a paradigm of a bygone era and thus not capable of solving the various crises our world is facing today, whereas the people in the street are progressively aware of an inevitable change. Our future leaders will have to be geared to guide the impending transformation. A transition that will not emerge automatically: future leadership requires an outright different set of core competences, which will have to be developed and trained.
Peter Hall introduced the concept of paradigm shifts into the public policy discourse. His accoun... more Peter Hall introduced the concept of paradigm shifts into the public policy discourse. His account explains the seismic transition the world experienced in the 1980s. With this neoliberal paradigm the former social contract between the public leadership and the people unraveled and the future of humanity has been put at risk. To steer humanity back in the direction of a sustainable future, the author argues for a participatory public policy paradigm instituted as a reinvention of Rousseau’s social contract theory with tree distinct features that respond to the complexity of life in modern times.
Despite decades of warnings by pandemic risk experts, COVID-19 took most of our leaders by surpri... more Despite decades of warnings by pandemic risk experts, COVID-19 took most of our leaders by surprise. Expert advice went largely unheeded, leaving most of our leaders ill-prepared for this pandemic and its civilizational impact. The inaptitude of leadership to deal with crises is not a new phenomenon; however, it is inextricably linked with a worldview, leadership presence, and policy agenda grounded in paradigmatic thinking in terms of order, stability, predictability, and gradual progress. These old orthodoxies are fading and should be replaced with a leadership presence based on complex thinking, humility, and a recognition of the transitional nature of our times. In this article, the author explains this novel transformative leadership presence.
Our home country, The Netherlands, seems to be a fertile ground for self-organizing organization... more Our home country, The Netherlands, seems to be a fertile ground for self-organizing organizations and is an incubator for researchers that are interested in the topic of leadership and self-organization. Scientific literature unveils that the question of leadership of self- organizing organizations is surrounded by controversy. Some scholars interpret the emergence of self-organizations as the starting point of leaderless organizations, others emphasize its emanation as a opportunity for coaching leadership styles. We posit that the zeitgeist is ripe for the unfoldment of new organizational model, like self-organizing organizations, and a new kind of leadership. Complexity theory offers a promising epistemology for the leadership in self-organizing organizations, because it offers a more dialogic framework for understanding the desired leadership presence, and of the context within which leadership is embedded. In general the importance of the context within which self-organizing organization emerges is neglected in most of the literature on self-organization and leadership. An analysis of the Dutch situation emphasizes that the specificity of context determines and nourishes the potential for self-organizing organizations and invites a kind of leadership that enables supportive, complex and adaptive behavior.
The complexifying world places contemporary leaders for major challenges in leading organizations... more The complexifying world places contemporary leaders for major challenges in leading organizations. The progressive complexity of the organizational and social context often surfaces as paradox. Surprisingly, paradoxes are hardly addressed in leadership epistemology, or in leadership development models. Contrarily, management and organizational science scholars have embraced the necessity to engage paradox in the workplace. The negation of paradoxes in most leadership theories stems from the axiology of positivism in which most traditional leadership theories are grounded. The theory of transformative leadership was one of the first epistemologies that recognized the existence of paradoxes in leadership practice. More specifically, transformative leadership addressed the leadership– follower paradox. Complexity theory as Edgar Morin has described offers a promising epistemic framework for the interpretation of paradoxes in concord with leadership development. Complexity-based leadership epistemology not only acknowledges paradoxes, but also interprets them as powerful sources of leadership transformation. A pivotal lesson that springs from complexity theory and the paradoxical nature of leadership is that leadership development is an integral and emerging process that spans the conscious and subconscious part of the human faculty. It calls for a multi-level understanding of the relations within and between the individual, the organization, and society at large.
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