New academic text links imagination to leadership skills
A newly published academic text on imagination focuses on its role in developing strong leadership skills. This volume provides a welcome addition to the growing scholarly evidence that cultivating imagination provides a pathway to professional skills, creativity and innovation. And also, that imagination is a skill that can be learnt by everyone.
“Think what the impact on commerce, education and culture could be if we focused on imagination, creativity and innovation rather than economic drivers alone,” writes Scott Brandon in the Foreword to ‘Cultivating Imagination in Leadership: Transforming Schools and Communities’.
Brandon is convinced that imagination is the crucial factor in seizing and creating new opportunities, and finding new paths to growth. Similarly, co-authors Gillian Judson and Meaghan Dougherty suggest developing your imagination, through various tasks, can lead to a greater understanding of issues and the creation of new ideas. These can also contribute to establishing more “socially just and inclusive communities”.
Judson defines imagination as: “the ability to envision the possible in all things; it is the generative feature of mind that enables understanding of the self, and others, and that fuels creativity and innovation.”
While the book’s primary focus is within education settings, its findings are more broadly relevant with the pair writing, “It’s never too late to cultivate the imagination in leadership”.
Brandon is convinced that everyone can develop the skill of imagination, an observation we both share.
“How do you become an imaginative educational leader?” he asks. “Just like getting to Carnegie Hall, it takes practice, practice, practice.” Which is what I encourage with groups in an Imagination Session® where I invite attendees to develop a daily imagination practice through imagination exercises and in more depth, an imaginative facilitated journey.
******************
To book a free half-hour discovery call, contact dawn@imaginationsession.com
The Olympics remind that the seemingly impossible can be within our grasp. We might not all be able to claim our spot in the history books as Olympians but we can still imagine. What might happen next if….