FIELDING UNIVERSITY PRESS’ DRIVING SOCIAL INNOVATION COMPLEMENTS SOCIAL JUSTICE AND OTHER VALUES

Fielding University Press recently released Driving Social Innovation: How Unexpected Leadership Is Transforming Society, a publication that weaves the subject of leadership in varying contexts and guides readers in managing social changes, precarity, and uncertainty in a changing and transforming world.

Edited by Marie Sonnet, PhD, Theresa Southam, PhD,

mind is essential. The kind of leaders that arose out of the chapter proposals were not the heroic leaders. These were not the leaders of white-male privilege. In many cases, these were leaders that are unexpected leaders, and those core values really resonated with them.

and

Patrice Rosenthal, PhD,

the book centers on how individuals and organizations can bring leadership and social innovation to our communities and organizations when we live amid powerful forces beyond our control. This collection of chapters rewards the reader with surprise and insight into why unexpected leadership matters.

How does this work tie into social justice and other core values and conversations?

PATRICE: Social justice – what that looks like and how it can be achieved – is at the center of this monograph. The purpose of the book is to explore how precarity in the world drives the need for social innovation, and how social innovation can rise in unexpected ways and forms. This links, in turn, to ongoing conversations about leadership. Particularly, it shows how contemporary forms of leadership are presenting different faces, forms, and intentions compared to traditional leadership of the hierarchical and “heroic” kind.

MARIE: Also, Fielding and the Institute for Social Innovation are about creating a more just and sustainable world. The “more just world” component means a lot to us. It's why I came to Fielding, and I suspect Theresa was attracted similarly. We wanted to continue the ISI’s work and accelerate and accentuate that mission among the ISI Fellows, all of whom have that common connection. It seemed like a productive idea that would also advance the Institute, as well as Fielding's core mission.

THERESA: Every group has a right to the ability to experience belonging and be with each other, living in concern for other species. To be able to play, to be able to control one's own environment. Having all these things in

How will this book help real people in real situations as they drive social innovation in their own environments? How do you hope it will drive change?

PATRICE: This book is a piece of scholar-practitionership in that it integrates cutting-edge scholarship on leadership, social innovation, and social justice with reflection-on-action in diverse contexts. It can help spur curiosity about needs and possibilities in various contexts, frame problems and possibilities in productive ways, and pose specific kinds of actions and programs to drive innovation. Through evaluation of programs and ideas, the book can be a resource both for creating and coursecorrecting approaches to social innovation.

MARIE: We want people to know that whatever you're doing in your circumstance is leading. You are a leader, and I don't think we often recognize everyday moments as leadership. We think of it as something more, something less, or maybe something that doesn’t have importance to be considered leadership. But, you are leading, and that can mean everything in your circumstance, community, or organization. You can change lives, and possibility creates community, social, and innovative change beyond what you might realize.

Driving Social Innovation is available through Fielding University Press. Read the full interview at fielding.edu/ news.