Chapter 8: Radical Heroic Leadership: Implications for Transformative Growth in the Workplace

Carl Sagan (1949) once wrote, “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” A corollary of this claim might read, “Radical times require radical leadership.” Our observation of current world conditions suggests that we live in such radical times. As we write this chapter, the United States is averaging more than one mass-fatality shooting per day (Ingraham, 2015). Terrorism sponsored by the Islamic state and other extremist groups threaten world peace and stability (Hoffman, 2013). Rising sea levels due to global warming are projected to submerge the world’s coastal cities within a few decades (Fagan, 2014). Our planet’s oceans are dying from humans disposing over a dozen metric tons of plastic and other rubbish into it over several millennia (Roberts, 2013). If radical times such as these require radical leadership, then it is incumbent on us to define the exact nature of such leadership and to take immediate steps toward encouraging, developing, and implementing it before the world’s problems become irreversible. To avoid cultivating radical leadership is to invite collective disaster.