Promoting Flourishing Through Self-Transcendent Leadership and Self-Transcendent Leadership Development

The ancient Greek admonition to “Know Thyself” refers to knowing and acting in accordance with one’s spiritual, greater Self, and can be promoted by transcending the boundaries imposed by the ego-dominated, lesser self. The present paper applies this idea to leadership in the form of what we refer to as self-transcendent leadership and self-transcendent leadership development. Self-transcendent leaders surmount their lesser selves and act in alignment with their greater Selves, which ultimately involves promoting love and positive changes that can help to address the sundry challenges of the modern world. The present paper extends the literature on spiritual leadership by building on Wilber’s (2001) model of transcending boundaries as a basis for self-transcendent leadership development which supports leaders in connecting with their greater Selves. Implications for leadership, leadership development, and future research are discussed.