I am currently researching a PhD at Cardiff University, investigating leadership as an attribute of the organisation rather than the individual. This approach challenges the dominant leader-follower model that by its nature limits what people bring to their work. The wider perspective considers leadership as activities of many people leading the business forward; where untapped talent and ideas are brought to the surface, valued and acted on in ways that the business benefits.

A key question in my research is: When leadership is acknowledged as organisation-wide, what then is leadership development? It is not conventional leadership development.

This study points towards leadership development to look more deeply into underlying dynamics of a business and its people; through psychology, processes of inquiry and arts-based interventions using images, narrative and metaphor.

Two conceptual frameworks inform this study; Gestalt (therapy) psychology and Jungian psychology, these frameworks provide theoretical ground for studying imaginative processes in professional and organisational learning.

Vision is seeing through the eyes; perception is seeing through the imagination