Chapter 1: Now More Than Ever: The Imperative for Socially Just Leadership Education

An unprecedented pandemic. An historic election. A renewed mandate for racial justice. A deeply divided nation. An increasingly unstable global stage. With only a week left in 2020 (at the time of this writing), many of us have passed the point of exhaustion multiple crises ago. While pundits and economists struggle to accurately account for the political and capital costs of enduring these trying times, the psychological and emotional prices paid by each of us is felt daily and profoundly. Insidiously embedded in this calculus, however, is the pressure to keep moving forward, lest the forces of oppression push us back. Although some seek to make us great again, others are working to make society better than it has ever been. This is the backdrop against which we are shifting the mindset of leadership education toward justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion.