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Preparing forces and their allies to operate in a world where asymmetry appears to be the only logical option for adversaries will require some significant and innovative adaptations to training and education methods. New models in leadership, selection, training, and education of leaders and troops are necessary to cope with complexity, non-predictability in conflict solving, and peace support operations. Multidimensional thinking and acting in military decision-making and applying new learning models to build up a climate of change and innovation on all levels of the armed forces is necessary. Organizational learning models, already applied in reshaping civil enterprises, are also useful in restructuring military forces and prepare them for the new challenges. T. Edmunds argues that the emerging new roles of the military cannot only be derived from an “objective functional reassessment” of the nature of new threats but are emerging, rather, as “a consequence of domestic and international socio-political influences that shape state’ perception of what their Armed Forces should look like and the purposes they should serve.” There is a higher priority for intercultural competences for leaders of all levels of responsibility, especially regarding the operational regions of the future and the globalized outcomes of conflicts in general. Research in this domain shows that methods of “face work” are best accomplished by Ting-Toomey's “identity negotiation.” Reshaping, restructuring, and preparing for new core rolls of the military and civil task forces are only to master when the responsible leaders manage to overcome the so-called “blind spot in leadership theories” (C.O. Scharmer), so leadership seems to be more and more a collective method of finding the “self.”

There are many challenges to be addressed in today's world. Futurists have a process, methods and skills to submit to a positive advancement of these challenges, which is the purpose of this paper.

The approach is the author's synthesis and reflection of the more positive aspects of addressing the problems facing contemporary society.

The author concludes the visioning operation needs to be near the beginning of the future's practice with the focus on presencing “what does the future want from us in this matter?” How can people serve “it” instead of their ego? This will take maturity, being conscious, and having an attitude of gratitude and service to something bigger than ourselves.

When futurist practitioners practice the approach of foresight planning, the viewpoint examined here is that the vision exercise should be placed at the beginning of the process. The priority of the visioning activity should include an inquiry of what wants to emerge from the “evolutionary integral future.” This consideration widens the perspective to include the well‐being of the whole ecosystem, with the possible benefits of resilience, waking up, growing up, and showing up.

This study examines the significance of time as a paradoxical factor and value in 21^st century public policy, management, and planning. Five areas are considered: (1) time as a strategic and moral concern, (2) examples of planning and time in public environments ranging from the individual level to the agency, policy, process, and contextual levels, (3) time in recent social and administrative theory, (4) time as a cognitive capability, and (5) the connection between time, planning, and learning. Conclusions and implications are developed to highlight the paradoxical status of planning and time in todayʼs public environment, and to suggest that, for public administrators, serving the public interest, near-term and long-term, is the heart of assuring that time becomes a central strategic and moral concern for public administration today.

The purpose of this paper is to explore change leadership in the context of traumatically experienced change. “Being-centeredness” is proposed as a change leadership paradigm, with the leader becoming a facilitative instrument who assists restoration of a healthy working environment, healed emotions and change transitioning.

This paper is a conceptual research paper. Conceptualizations of being-centeredness are developed by building on the discourse of change emotions in organizations and research on change leadership.

Change interventions are experienced more traumatic than often believed. Healing of these emotions is essential to avoid stuckness. Becoming an instrument of change enables being-centered leaders to assist the emotional healings of victims and survivors when change is experienced as traumatic, promoting individual transitioning, restricting resistance to enhance change readiness and resilience.

Although conceptualizations are supported by an abundance of research and practical experience, as with any conceptual research, it lacks direct empirical evidence to support the conceptualizations.

Being-centeredness is an untapped inner capacity in many change leaders and change interventions. Explicitly normalizing and promoting being-centeredness and the further development of this capacity in leaders will allow this latent capacity to surface from its suppressed state, to be applied overtly.

The paper provides a new paradigm on leaders can and should deal with acute emotions that are often experienced from change, which focus more on the way of being of leaders, than competencies or change activities that must be done. This is likely to further emotional healing, change transitioning, resilience and ultimately change success.

This paper critically analyses the urban memory and heritage interpretation of postcolonial Harbin, a city in China that was founded by the Russians in 1898. It investigates the role and making of Russian colonial heritage in contemporary Harbin with a detailed case study of the Harbin Railway Station

Research methods include archival analysis, observation and semi-structured interview. In-depth interviews were conducted with local people, architect/urban planners and officials.

Local people of different generations with different backgrounds have different interpretations of the recently made colonial heritage of the Harbin Railway Station. The urban memory of Harbin has been consistently re-forming with both nostalgia and amnesia. Younger generations tend to regard the colonial heritage as their own heritage and a symbol of Harbin's cultural character without considering much about its related colonial history. In today's Harbin, colonial heritage as the “colonial past presencing” is more about a feel of the Europeanised space rather than the actual historical events of the period, and colonial heritage making becomes a tool for urban development and revitalisation at the institutional level. However, due to the paradigm shift in China's urban development, Harbin is facing new challenges in dealing with its colonial heritage.

Harbin is an under-researched case in terms of urban heritage studies. This paper offers a new entry point for understanding the westernisation and colonial heritage making in the contemporary China more deeply and thoroughly and helps to see the trend of China's urban development more clearly.

The paper asks how leaders in organizations address complex situations or challenges where past experiences are no longer helpful or might pose an obstacle for success. The authors use the metaphor of the blank canvas to describe the work of entrepreneurs or innovators who connect to an emerging future possibility. Based on their research, the authors argue that social technologies allow actors in organizations to connect to an emerging future, and break through habitual patterns of the past.

Underlying this paper, are action research projects in change management and organizational learning. While social science methods tend to be based on observational data, the founder of action research, Kurt Lewin, and his successors, including Ed Schein, Chris Argyris, Peter Senge, and Bill Torbert, claim that we have to use more than just observation (third‐person views) to get meaningful data about social reality. According to Bill Torbert organizational researchers need to access third‐, second‐, and first‐person knowledge – that is, observational data (third person), conversational data (second person) and experiential data (first person) that stem from participative action inquiry.

The paper concludes that organizational innovation and change processes cannot be outsourced. Profound innovation and change are only sustainable and successful when connected to the knowledge of the individuals involved, and when created by the people who will use them and be responsible for the results they produce.

Any social action can originate from different inner places; every actor, an individual or a group, even an organization, can choose between different places from where their action originate. How we choose to attend to the world is the leverage we have to determine the outcome of our actions. The arts provide processes that allow actors in organizations to access this quality of knowledge and leverage it.

The purpose of this case study was to explore senior librarians’ perceptions of successful leadership skills in the 21st century. The data gathered from 10 senior library leaders consisted of demographic information and responses to six open-ended interview questions. From the NVivo 10 analysis, several significant themes emerged regarding successful library leadership skills in the 21st century at two levels: foundational and interpersonal. At the foundational level, technical and knowledge skills form the building blocks for the next level of interpersonal skills. Persuasion and collaborative skills are interwoven with these interpersonal skills, both of which are at the core of the postindustrial paradigm of leadership. These two levels of skills, with an emphasis on persuasion skills, should form the basis of succession planning programs for next generation librarians. Implementing such programs could lead to increased leadership diversity, greater job satisfaction, improved job performance and effectiveness, all of which help retain librarians and ease staff shortages. Further studies are recommended.

Global collaboration, or the ability to collaborate with people different from ourselves or even across species, becomes increasingly important in our interconnected world to engage constructively with and across difference. As we face more complex challenges, both locally and globally, the need for the creativity and innovation made possible by diverse perspectives is only amplified. Through five stories from our work as consultants and practitioners helping organizations to collaborate, we explore the role of global leadership in collaboration during times of crisis in various sectors. We began by asking ourselves a series of questions about global collaboration that could also serve as future research directions for scholars. We argue that new forms of leadership are required in the global context where both tasks and relationship domains are characterized by high complexity. We conclude by providing insights and recommendations for global leaders to address those complexities through collaboration and help their organizations learn from their experiences in crises and beyond.

The purpose of this paper is to examine two contrasting leadership development methodologies, Reflective Practice and Scharmer’s Theory U.

Gibbs’ Reflective Cycle and Scharmer’s Reflecting Deeply exercise were applied to the same leadership incident on separate days.

Reflective Practice provided helpful insights through focusing on one’s thoughts, feelings and motives during the event, as well as the actions of others and the author’s responses to them. The author found that using Scharmer’s Reflecting Deeply exercise enabled a deeper understanding of the incident to emerge, which also provided new and distinct insights.

The main limitation was the case study nature of this exercise; these findings are merely the result of one person’s experiences.

To develop rounded leadership skills, leaders can benefit from tapping into all of their resources; these two approaches allow different aspects of one’s intelligence to be accessed, which ought to facilitate greater development.

Many authors cite a current crisis of leadership, not least of all a perceived failure to tackle the environmental challenges we face. By seeking to develop more intelligent and rounded leaders, leadership itself ought to improve which in turn should help society tackle pressing issues.

To the author’s knowledge, a direct comparison of the leadership development methodologies used in this paper has not been previously described. This paper provides useful insights into the practical application of Reflective Practice and Scharmer’s Theory U, which will help inform others seeking to develop as leaders.

How can social presence, participation and a sense of community be formed in an online setting without compromising on social connectedness through physical distancing? Under consideration of the goals for an Education for Sustainable Development, transformative science and the social techniques of Theory U, developed by Otto Scharmer (2016), an online Community of Inquiry of researchers, practitioners and learners was to be developed, followed and observed to discuss the question whether and how it was possible to create an awareness-based, future-oriented and socially committed online community that would enrich social transformation processes.

Methods of 1st, 2nd and 3rd person research were applied, as well as group discussions, one Mentimeter survey and one standardised questionnaire with an open question.

Results indicate that it is not only possible to create a feeling of community in an online setting, but also point to the terms and conditions which act as enablers and influencers, like seeing each other face-to-face, collective check-ins and check-outs as well as small group break-out sessions. Video conferencing and the practicing of rules of conduct and communication, also referred to as netiquette, enable a transcendence of the physical distance to reach a feeling of belonging and social presence in the perception of the participants.

In line with global sustainable development, the study also sets an example for how to reduce personal emissions when planning an international conference. Also, it shows how to create online spaces to connect people worldwide, which will support to take over responsibilities as world citizens.