Chapter 3: The Interdisciplinary Acts of Leadership: Facilitating the Relationship Among the Head, Heart, Hands, and Holy

The author offers a conceptual fourfold head–heart–hands–holy interdisciplinary leadership framework to address the problem of racism within a Canadian policing agency. The question raised is: “How can enforcement officers commit themselves to the cause of treating all with respect and dignity rather than simply complying with an organizational command to do so?” Focusing on the unconscious and implicit biases in both a policing agency and in early leadership studies, the author argues that it is only by raising our consciousness of biases that exist (head), genuinely feeling the need for change (heart), and engaging in purposeful action (hands) for no other reason than to treat persons as persons, with dignity and grace (holy), can we begin to bring dwelling in this common place called Canada to the fullness of all that it can be. Emerging out of the reciprocity and oneness of the four Hs, the author concludes by offering four corresponding metaphors of leadership, namely, leadership as educating, as caring, as purposeful action, and as a moral undertaking. The author argues that an interdisciplinary approach to leadership studies is governed by the interconnectedness of all four Hs and its corresponding metaphors.