Conscious leadership: A conceptual framework of elements for short-term and long-term effectiveness

Abstract

The idea of conscious leadership refers to the deliberate process whereby a leader takes the essential elements of both the short-term and long-term dimensions of leadership into account in the exercise of leadership. The aim of this article is to provide a frame of reference for promoting conscious leadership, therefore a conceptual framework of both the long term and short term dimensions of conscious leadership is provided. A frame of reference for conscious leadership which is derived from a literature study and conceptual analysis of prominent leadership theories and models is provided. The article concludes that both the good leader and the developing leader need a coherent, comprehensive framework that precisely indicates what good leadership entails in practice and that the framework for conscious leadership provided in the article could assist conscious leadership practice.