Human beings have created so much that is wondrous, powerful, and beautiful. Over the centuries we have learned to fly, communicate instantly across huge distances, heal diseases, and see across the universe. Yet vestiges and legacies of tribalism, fear, and hostility remain and repeatedly flare, threatening to engulf us. We exist on the edge of innovation and destruction, the edge of what we dread versus what we dream.

Edges of natural systems and societies naturally stimulate growth and inventiveness as their inhabitants navigate their way through the borderlands. It is fitting that Leading at the Edge, ILA’s 2020 annual global conference, will take place in San Francisco, a city of possibility where a continent meets an ocean. San Francisco is known for attracting people engaged in exploring the edges in the arts, sciences, and business, as well as in themselves. Here, local groups are experimenting with different pathways to racial and socio-economic healing and new directions in neuroscience, biomedicine, AI, and telehealth – just to name a few.

We invite you to join us in San Francisco, on the edge, as we explore leadership, the ways that we lead, and what we expect from leaders. Leadership can seem, at times, like an empty word. Leaders can accumulate power, aggrandize themselves, and make others suffer as they advance their own interests over those of others. Leaders can also inspire people to act individually and collectively in ways that are kind and that nourish one another and our planet. As leaders and as colleagues committed to leadership scholarship, development, education, and practice, we can influence how leaders move us toward (or away from) a healthy planet and a better world.  

Come share your forward-thinking, innovative research and projects! We invite you to bring your experience and knowledge as we ask: