Guest: Rens van Loon
- 30 January 2018; Reissued 30 September 2025
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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.
Host Maureen Metcalf
Maureen Metcalf, Founder and CEO of the Innovative Leadership Institute, is a highly sought-after expert in anticipating and leveraging future business trends to transform organizations. She has captured 30 years of experience in an award-winning series of books used by public, private, and academic organizations to align company-wide strategy, systems, and culture using Innovative Leadership techniques.
Maureen shares her hard-won insights through public speaking, industry publications, interviews, and video presentations. She is a regular contributor to Forbes.com, host of the top international radio show, Innovating Leadership, Co-creating Our Future, and author of the award-winning Innovative Leadership book series. The series includes: Innovative Leadership Fieldbook; Innovative Leaders Guide to Transforming Organizations; Innovative Leadership Workbook for Global Leaders; and Innovative Leadership for Health Care, among others.
She is a Fellow of the International Leadership Association.
About Innovating Leadership: Co-Creating Our Future
The pace of change in the world is increasing exponentially. Leadership must evolve. And that gets to the heart of our mission: To bring you the latest thoughts on leadership so you can innovate, learn, and evolve…growing your team, your business, and yourself! This series features a new interview every week. Host Maureen Metcalf interviews world leaders, global business and NPO executives, thought leaders, and researchers in a wide range of industries. It’s a breadth of perspectives unavailable anywhere else. Become an innovative leader in your own right!
Innovating Leadership is proud to partner with the International Leadership Association on a yearly series of episodes on global leadership with special ILA speakers, members, and guests.