Innovating Leadership: Co-Creating Our Future S4-Ep5: From Data to Dialogue: Why Leaders Need More than Numbers
Guest: Rens van Loon, Professor at Tilburg University
What do you do when logic and data aren’t enough? Today’s biggest leadership challenges—culture change, systemic disruption, complex decision-making—are wicked problems. They can’t be solved with old habits.
In this interview, Professor Rens van Loon, the world’s first Professor of Dialogical Leadership, explains how generative dialogue empowers leaders to navigate complexity, build trust, and create authentic change.
In this episode you’ll discover:
- Why truth and data are relational, not absolute.
- How to integrate multiple roles (CEO, parent, coach, human) into one authentic leadership.
- The practice of : suspending judgment, asking better questions, and co-creating new meaning.
- The Japanese concept of Ma as a tool for reflection and transformation.
- How leaders and teams can solve their wicked problemse.
If you’re a leader ready to move beyond old habits and create lasting impact, this conversation will reshape how you approach complexity.
Produced in partnership with the International Leadership Association: https://ilaglobalnetwork.org/.
Other episodes you'll enjoy:
- Let’s Talk: Four Steps to Bridging Workplace, Political, & Family Disagreements with Mike Morrow-Fox
- Empathy, Dialogue, & a Good Mood: What Leaders Need in Crisis with Ambassador Thomas Greminger & Peter Cunningham
- Work, War, & In-Between: An International Peace Negotiator’s Top Tips for Resolving Conflict with John, Lord Alderdice
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RESOURCES:
You can learn more about Rens and his firm, &Dialogue, on their websites: https://ac3.788.myftpupload.com/ and https://dialogischleiderschap.com/ .
Rens’ book is Creating Organizational Value through Dialogical Leadership. It’s on Amazon at https://amzn.to/3VIicAx. His most recent book is Understanding Dialogical Leadership; it’s available at https://amzn.to/3Krhvt6.
Our host Maureen Metcalf posts a newsletter every week on LinkedIn. You can subscribe here.
Maureen’s latest book is Innovative Leadership & Followership in the Age of AI. You’ll find details about it at https://bit.ly/LeaderInAI, or check out the Kindle version at https://amzn.to/44buVz8 . The audiobook version is now available at https://amzn.to/4dTCleZ.
Her other 10 books are available on Amazon here.
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OUR PODCAST TEAM:
Host & Executive Producer: Maureen Metcalf
Editor & Executive Producer: Dan Mushalko
Graphics Editor: Stacia Rogan
Sponsorship Sales: Kristine Gross
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Website: InnovativeLeadershipInstitute.com
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About Our Guest:
Rens van Loon is a philosopher and personality psychologist who has been a professor of Dialogical Leadership at Tilburg University, within the Humanities and Digital Sciences faculty, since 2014. He supervises PhD students and teaches Dialogical Leadership and Dialogical Self Theory at institutions including TIAS, VU, and in the Comenius program. From 2015 to 2019, he served as a board member of the International Leadership Association (ILA), and for several years, he has been a member of the Scientific Advisory Board (WAR) of the Titus Brandsma Institute (TBI) (Radboud University). He is one of the authors of the frequently cited first article on Dialogical Self Theory in the American Psychologist in 1992. His work as a scientist, educator, and teacher primarily involves developing and applying this theory in the practice of leadership and organizational development.
From 2009 to 2018, Van Loon worked as Director of Human Capital at Deloitte Consulting as a leadership expert. Besides client work, his focus was also on internal guidance and training within Deloitte University and Deloitte Academy.