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← Transformative leadership education: a cybernetics-inspired approach
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Insights from an experiment in individual and collective transformation How can we use cybernetic leadership education experiences and tools, such as collective making, multi-perspective systems analyses and speculative futures, to create different neural pathways to imagine and enact change? How can we ensure that our educational experiences build their own momentum? We have learned a great deal about cybernetic leadership from the Master of Applied Cybernetics at the Australian National University, an experimental program that we have run since 2019. By way of background, the program is a year-long, full-time, in-person, immersive experience for between 10 and 20 students. Around 6 educators do the majority of the teaching, with a range of guests and external perspectives brought in at various points in the year.
The program is specifically developed in place with connection to Country — at the Australian National University that is the land of the Ngunnawal and Ngambri peoples in the region where Australia’s capital city Canberra now sits. Students are welcomed onto Country, and those Countries that are connected are brought into dialogue through the program, whether through student, staff, partner or guest connections. The program engages heads, hands and hearts. Students build with hardware and software in a dedicated lab space and discover new insights through interactive activities (hands). They are encouraged to engage personally with the content, to surface and reflect on their values in connection and interaction with the values inherent the course material (hearts). They are taught critical question asking and to engage their critical brain at every step (heads).
