Episode 4 - Dr Aiden MA Thornton - On complexity, worldviews, and 7 questions for the future of leadership

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Sep 10, 2025

In this engaging discussion, Dr. Aiden M. A. Thornton, a complexity leadership expert and former Menzies Senior Research Fellow, dives into the evolving landscape of leadership development. He distinguishes between leader and leadership development, critiques fad-driven practices, and emphasizes the need for measurement literacy. Dr. Thornton presents seven guiding questions for the future of leadership, discusses how AI might reshape leadership roles, and highlights the importance of truth and ethics in decision-making. It's a thought-provoking exploration of complexity in leadership!

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INSIGHT

Progress In Leadership Is Ambiguous

Academic evidence on leadership development is mixed and progress is unclear.
Aiden Thornton is skeptical that traditional approaches keep pace with rapidly changing contexts like AI.

INSIGHT

Practitioner Dominance Shapes The Field

Leadership development is dominated by practitioners and popular voices.
This practitioner dominance speeds innovation but also spreads untested theories and tools.

INSIGHT

Worldviews Drive Leadership Definitions

Multiple epistemic worldviews shape how people define leadership.
Thornton identifies at least six worldviews influencing leadership development debates.

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Welcome to the fourth episode of the Curiosity Mindset podcast.

Introduction and context

In February 2024, the inaugural Leadership Development Summit was held in Tasmania, Australia.

As a direct outcome, a white paper was produced identifying 5 major challenges:

1) Research-practice gap

2) Divergent worldviews

3) Challenges of leadership measurement

4) Complexity and systems thinking

5) Future of leadership development

In this limited series, I will be interviewing 5 people who contributed to the paper to reflect on what's changed since the 2024 summit, what new challenges are being experienced by leaders, and what they believe we need to be talking about at the next summit in December 2025, in Canberra.

About our guest

In this fourth episode, I speak with Dr Aiden M.A. Thornton.

Aiden is a complexity leadership expert, management consultant, psychometrics entrepreneur, and street epistemologist.

As a complexity leadership expert, he holds an interdisciplinary PhD in leadership, complexity, and cognition and has served as the Inaugural Menzies Senior Research Fellow in Leadership and Complexity at the Australian National University’s School of Cybernetics since February 2024.

He has co-led the ANU Complexity Leadership Lab and his work spans the theory, measurement, research, education, and practice of complexity leadership. He applies principles of cybernetics, systems thinking, and complexity science to making sense of leadership and its development.

In this episode

In our conversation, we go deep on the distinction between leader and leadership development along with its gaps, the challenges of measuring leadership impact, the nature of complexity, and the questions we need to be asking as we step into the future.Links

1) Tickets to the next Leadership Development Summit are on sale now: ⁠⁠⁠LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT SUMMIT 2025⁠⁠⁠

2) The White Paper is here: ⁠⁠⁠White Paper Leadership Summit⁠⁠⁠

3) Connect with Dr Aiden Thornton on LinkedIn: Dr Aiden M. A. Thornton | LinkedIn

4) Subscribe to my Substack: ⁠⁠⁠Curiosity Mindset | Scott Ko | Substack⁠⁠⁠

5) Check out my website: ⁠⁠⁠www.scottko.com⁠⁠⁠

6) Keen to chat with me? Let's have a virtual coffee: ⁠⁠⁠Calendly