In his 1980 essay, The World of Tomorrow and the Person of Tomorrow, the psychologist Carl Rogers contemplated the future. He described those who would usher in this new era as people with the capacity to understand, bring about and absorb a paradigm shift.
He added: "I have an uneasy feeling about this chapter… It is a beginning, an outline, a suggestion… I believe that what I am saying here will some day be fleshed out much more fully, either by me or someone else."
Maureen O’Hara and Graham Leicester are uniquely qualified to flesh out Carl Rogers’s vision (Maureen worked closely with Rogers for many years). Here they explore the competencies – the ways of being, doing, knowing and organising - that can help us navigate in complex and powerful times. They argue that these competencies are innate and within reach of all of us – given the right setting, plenty of practice and some gentle guidance. But they are seldom seen because they are routinely undervalued in today’s culture. That must change, the authors insist, and this book is intended to begin that change.
The book is based on the authors’ extensive research and their practical experience observing the qualities demonstrated by some of today’s most successful cultural, political and business leaders.