The challenges shaping the twenty-first century are increasingly interconnected and interdependent. Rapid technological change, environmental pressures, social disruption, a decline in trust and the changing nature of institutions make outcomes difficult to predict and challenges difficult to address in isolation. Addressing these complex systemic challenges requires new approaches to leadership, including adaptive and participatory governance.
The Australian National University’s (ANU) Leadership and Complexity Lab is a transdisciplinary research and development initiative within the ANU School of Cybernetics, generously supported by the Menzies Leadership Foundation. It brings together researchers, practitioners and partners from different disciplines, sectors and contexts to advance understanding of the leadership needed now and into the future. Through research, education and partnership, the Lab explores leadership at the intersection of people, technology, society and the environment. We investigate how leadership both shapes and emerges from within complex systems. We focus on the capabilities, practices and conditions that enable individuals, collectives and systems to make sense of change, learn, adapt and act purposefully.
Our vision is to advance the understanding, practice and development of leadership in complex systems. We do this through strengthening the capacity of individuals, collectives and systems to navigate change and shape safe, sustainable and hopeful futures.
Our research#
Our research examines the capabilities, practices and conditions that support leadership in dynamic systems, including how people:
- make sense of uncertainty and change
- build relationships, recognise patterns and work with feedback across systems
- work across organisational, disciplinary and sector boundaries
- mobilise people and resources around shared purposes
- create conditions for learning, experimentation and adaptation
- exercise judgement and responsibility as technologies and systems evolve.
We understand leadership as more than the actions or attributes of individual leaders. This directs attention to the relationships, structures, technologies, environments and interactions through which leadership emerges and collective action becomes possible.
How we work#
Lead through scholarship#
We advance research on leadership in complexity, generating evidence about the capabilities and conditions that support leadership in complex systems. We bring together ideas from leadership, systems thinking, complexity science, cybernetics and other fields to develop and test new ways of understanding and practising leadership.
Partner for impact: applied leadership research#
We work with researchers, organisations, governments and communities to tackle real-world challenges. Through collaborative research, experimental sandpits, prototypes and leadership capability building, we create spaces to design, explore, test and learn new approaches.
Build leadership capability for the future#
We build knowledge, capability, partnerships, educational experiences and research infrastructure that extend beyond individual projects, supporting continued learning and adaptation across different contexts and systems.
Partner with us#
A central ambition of the Lab is to build a broader community of partners interested in exploring complex leadership challenges. We welcome opportunities to collaborate on leadership research with organisations, researchers, governments, communities and funders across Australia and internationally. For further information, contact us.
