Leading a scientific group while holding a transpersonal perspective

Scientific leaders who hold a transpersonal perspective—embracing post-materialist, spiritual, or contemplative views—approach leadership with distinct values and practices. Based on interviews with six such leaders, six themes emerged: they never aspired to leadership nor identify as leaders; prioritize caring relationships; select team members for personality traits over intellectual capacity; ensure wellbeing of both individuals and the collective; face ego-driven dynamics that undermine spiritual aspects in academia; and engage in spiritual practice that positively affects leadership. Transpersonal inspiration guided their values, attitudes, and practices. The findings aim to fill a gap in literature and enable future comparisons with mainstream scientific leadership.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Scientific leadership in mainstream academic circles plays a crucial role in scientific advancement, yet it seems to be in crisis. This study aimed to explore and understand how scientific leaders, who hold a transpersonal perspective (e.g. post-materialist, spiritual, contemplative), approach leadership, interpersonal and team dynamics, and the challenges they cope with in their daily lives. The main research question was: What are the values, attitudes, and practices of scientific leaders who hold a transpersonal perspective, and how is this perspective informing their leadership style? Constructivist grounded theory was used to analyse semi-structured interviews with six scientific leaders holding a transpersonal perspective. Six major themes emerged: Never aspiring to be a leader and not identifying as one; Prioritising caring relations; Choosing distinct personality traits in new students/team-members (over intellectual capacity); Ensuring wellbeing of individuals as well as collective; Ego-driven dynamics undermining spiritual aspects in academia; and Spiritual practice positively affecting leadership. Findings suggest that transpersonal inspiration served as a guiding light for the values, attitudes and practices of participants in this study. The hope for this study is to fill the existing gap in literature and possibly enable future comparisons with the mainstream scientific leadership.