Abstract:
The Global Risks 2035 Update by the Atlantic Council, despite its clinical focus on economic,
environmental and security challenges, nevertheless suggests that shared global meaning
might have a role to play in enabling humanity to set off on a more beneficial trend for its
foreseeable global future. The realisation that the complex challenges facing humanity is
existential as much as it is pragmatic necessitates trans-disciplinary engagement and
collaborative research ventures. This article contributed a trans-disciplinary reflection by
bringing philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche and psychologist-philosopher Carl Jung in dialogue
with critical leadership studies within the broader framework of the science–religion dialogue
of this special volume. Pointing to the awareness in leadership studies of how meaning,
narrative and shared vision enable greater effectiveness and collaboration, we explore nihilism
as cultural problem to be addressed in order to create meaning that fosters global collaborative
action. From the viewpoint of the Global Risk 2035 Update and its gloomy strategic foresight
of a newly bipolarised world or further descent into chaos, the article brought Nietzsche’s idea
of the Last Man into dialogue with Carl Jung’s emphasis on the need for a collective myth to
reverse the decline of civilisation and enable humanity to chart a course towards unprecedented
global collaboration.
CONTRIBUTION : The article contributes from a transdisciplinary perspective to the question of
meaning in leadership. Drawing from the contributions of Nietzsche and Jung, it argues that
shared myth and shared meaning is vital to address the complex global challenges that
leadership is called to address. This philosophical reflection on the crisis of nihilism contributes
to the growing awareness in critical leadership studies that meaning-making is critical to
effective leadership.
