About the Editor
Carol S. Pearson, PhD, is the president of Pacifica Graduate Institute, an accredited graduate school located in the Santa Barbara, California, area offering master’s and doctoral degree programs in clinical psychology, counseling psychology, depth psychology (with specializations in somatics and in community, liberation, and ecopsychology), mythology, and the humanities—and currently developing a program in organizational leadership. Visit http://www.pacifica.edu.
The Transforming Leader builds on themes that have informed many of her earlier books: The Hero Within: Six Archetypes We Live By; Awakening the Heroes Within: Twelve Archetypes to Help Us Find Ourselves and Transform Our World, and What Story Are You Living? (coauthor Hugh Marr), as well as the Pearson-Marr Archetype Indicator, which readers can use to assess the archetypes active in their lives and which provides information, not included in this book, on how readers can access a wider range of leadership capacities through enhancing their awareness of archetypal energies within and around them.
Dr. Pearson’s work on identifying archetypes in group and organizational cultures provides a means to articulate the unwritten rules and taboos of an organization’s culture by naming the archetypal energies within it. Doing so can assist in integrated approaches to authentic brand identity development; organizational development and change management; and recruitment, retention, and leadership development efforts. Such aligned approaches make it easier for organizations to deliver on their branding promises because these practices build on the genuine values, motivations, and strengths of an organization. As part of this effort, Dr. Pearson published (with coauthor Margaret Mark) The Hero and the Outlaw: Building Extraordinary Brands through the Power of Archetypes and Mapping the Organizational Psyche: A Jungian Theory of Organizational Dynamics and Change (with coauthor John G. Corlett) and developed and tested the Kenexa Cultural Insight SurveyTM, which assesses the archetypes active in an organizational culture.
Dr. Pearson has long studied and practiced leadership in the interest of human development and liberation. She was an American Council on Education Fellow in Academic Administration, a program designed to develop higher education leaders, and subsequently held faculty and administrative positions in several colleges and universities. Prior to taking a position at Pacifica Graduate Institute, she directed the James MacGregor Burns Academy of Leadership in the School of Public Policy at the University of Maryland. The Academy at that time was the home of the International Leadership Association.
Dr. Pearson is now interested in how identifying the larger (Third Space) mythic stories in situations of conflict and strife can help us imagine ways to shift to more positive narratives, thus enabling new possibilities to emerge. From this concern, she recently published a monograph through the Fetzer Institute American Dream Series titled Maturing the American Dream: Archetypal Narratives Meet the Twenty-First Century. Moving from conflictual relationships to collaboration around solutions, she believes, also can be furthered through holding in our minds and hearts the image of our planet viewed from outer space, looking both so beautiful and so fragile. Such an image evokes the realization that we are all in this together and can challenge us to let our minds, hearts, and souls grow big enough to embrace the whole, thus finding an evolving Third Space where all is possible.
For more information about Dr. Pearson and the Pearson Archetypal System, go to http://www.herowithin.com.