Exploring Transformative Leadership through Threshold Concepts
Reflecting on insights from this week’s exploration of threshold concept theory I’ve come to understand threshold concepts as “aha” moments or paradigm shifts that allow so many other things within a discipline, field, or practice to “click”, come together, and/or make sense in the mind of the learner. A threshold concept becomes a lens through which we see the world. Once we’ve been shown this new way of seeing, there is no going back – we cannot simply unsee things from this standpoint but rather can now make sense of so much more about a field/ subject by understanding certain threshold concepts about it.
“ Overcoming Barriers to Student Understanding” and “Threshold Concepts in Practice” provide an in-depth examination of threshold concepts and their implications on education to explore how we teach and learn. The authors define threshold concepts as transformative, irreversible, integrative, and often troublesome understandings that fundamentally change the learner’s perspective,[1] noting that threshold concepts are akin to a portal, opening up the world in new and previously inaccessible ways.[2]
At the core of this framework is the argument that students need to be “troubled” and experience knowledge that disrupts their earlier way(s) of thinking.[3]Threshold concepts place an emphasis on affect, disposition, and identity. There are three core ways they influence our education: 1) through providing an opportunity to understand one’s stuckness ( ie. why difficulty to learning may arise, the nature of a learner’s “troublesomeness,” and ways to talk about the conceptual encounters that we all will experience ), 2) by being something to help sequence learning, shape programming, and design curriculum, and 3) as a research tool that allows us to further deepen our knowledge of issues still needing additional investigation as it relates to the scholarship of learning.[4]
In general, there is no one-size-fits-all way of understanding how we learn however, threshold concepts aim to be another helpful lens to add to our learning toolkit. Reflecting on my own learning experiences and even more so on my leadership practice and the foundational values it’s been built on, I was surprised to find threshold concepts at play in so many ways. Being that I’m in a field focused on adult education, it’s a bit embarrassing to admit that I’m not already well-versed in the terminology of threshold concepts. However, despite not being well versed in the concept itself, I do know and actively relate to many threshold concepts within my field, I simply didn’t know that they were called threshold concepts until now. In that way, threshold concepts are their own threshold concept for me. Doing this week’s assignment opened me up to this new lens that’s prompted a deeper dive into all I think I intuitively know about leadership.
So much of my learning journey has involved that which is experiential and organic, shaped by the Spirit’s leading and adopted through mentorship, rather than gained through personal study of academic theories. That said, I now can’t stop uncovering threshold moments in my life. While they go all the way back to my childhood, I’d like to take a moment to focus on a few related to transformative leadership.
I’ll never forget the day I was invited to see leadership as a practice. I had previously thought of leadership as a role or title or some power bestowed upon an individual, rather than seeing it as something to be learned and applied in praxis. For someone who had previously only thought leadership was about being a CEO or charismatically commanding a big stage, it was an idea that challenged so much of my identity. Despite at first taking some time to truly adopt this concept, once I fully saw leadership in practice it was liberating and everything I did from then on out was influenced by this concept.
As I grew in my leadership journey and began working with organizations – both as staff and as an external coach/consultant, I was quickly introduced to adaptive leadership. At the time I didn’t see it as a threshold concept but it was. Adaptive leadership challenged me and the teams I worked with to move away from the status quo of simply replicating what’s been done in the past and instead embrace the volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity of the world we live in by adopting new methods of operation that focus on continual learning, taking each experience into account when new challenges arise.
Another powerful threshold concept in my life has been that of power dynamics. I remember first learning about this in my undergraduate studies where we focused on power dynamics related to race, class, and gender. That new lens opened up a new way of looking at the world and provided language to understand experiences I had been through or saw others go through.
With so much of my professional life being focused on supporting organizations working cross-culturally I’ve found these two concepts to be vital for addressing some of the larger challenges faced when working to create a more socially just world. There’s something called the nonprofit paradox ( another concept that transformed the way I operate) which says that “Nonprofits tend to recreate within their own organizational cultures the problems they are trying to solve in society.” [5] Educating leaders within these mission-driven organizations to understand these concepts and adopt practices that leverage the new insight isn’t always easy. I often find that while an individual leader might have a big ‘aha’ moment upon being introduced to these concepts, they remain clueless when it comes to practical ways for implementation. Or, as the nonprofit paradox describes, they cannot see how these concepts relate to them and their work since their admirable dedication to certain values often leaves them blind to their own faults. I too have experienced this blindness firsthand in building my company and having to really examine if the internal systems and structures were in alignment with our core values and beliefs.
Overall, threshold concept theories can be applied to so many aspects of life. One can argue that the books we read don’t give enough insight into practical application for a larger variety of learning situations however this is a task I am excited to explore moving forward as it relates to my own growth as a leader, personally, professionally, and academically.
[1]Land, Ray, Jan Meyer, and Michael Flanagan. Threshold Concepts in Practice. Sense Publishers, 2016.
[2] Meyer, Jan H.F., and Ray Land. Overcoming Barriers to Student Understanding: Threshold Concepts and Troublesome Knowledge. New York: Routledge, 2006.
[3]Ibid
[4]Center for Engaged Learning. (2019, March 19), Ray Land on Threshold Concepts, Accessed on January 23, 2024, Retrieved from www.youtube.com/watch?v=kiNQAWFzULE.
[5]Piana, David La. “The Nonprofit Paradox.” Stanford Social Innovation Review 8, no. 3 (2010): 23–24. https://doi.org/10.48558/8S4M-MN24.
Please note that this article was also written with the support of AI, utilizing the specific prompts suggested in the “DLDR Substantive Weekly Blog Post and Asynchronous Conversation” as a base for personal inquiry that birthed the following additional prompt: “Could you provide more concrete examples and practical strategies for implementing threshold concepts in leadership development?”
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Akwese
5 responses to “Exploring Transformative Leadership through Threshold Concepts”
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Akwése, I was in the same boat as you in encountering threshold concepts in my education journey without knowing that is what they are called. From the several threshold concepts you mentioned encountering in your life, which caused the biggest shift in identity or understanding? What did you learn through that season of liminality that will help you lead or coach others?
Chad, these are really great questions. Out of what I shared it’s hard to choose which had the greatest shift. Learning to see leadership as a practice probably had the larger shift in my identity but understanding power dynamics freed me in a way that made me no longer feel “crazy” for feeling certain ways about experiences.
One gave me hope and courage that I could be more than my labels while the other gave me a framework to understand and articulate parts of my lived experience that felt unnameable until then.
In terms of what I learned through those seasons of liminality that will help me lead or coach others, I’d say grace, empathy, compassion and acceptance were key. Another big thing I learned that I talk ALOT about in my work is that once you begin this journey you are operating counterculturally. I’ve found it vital to name that ” this work is countercultural” time and time again, not only for others but for myself. Because it can be easy to slip back into old thought patterns when we live in a world that was intentionally designed for us to think/ be a certain way.
Akwése, while I was reading your remarks regarding adaptive leadership and better understanding power dynamics, I can’t help but think of some of the concerning leadership styles I have seen in a cross cultural context. This has been a troublesome space I have been navigating in Africa. I keep thinking, “there has to be something better!” I agree with you that there is a very specific CEO-type that we feel we must mimic. I resonated with your words, “I worked …to move away from the status quo of simply replicating what’s been done in the past and instead embrace the volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity of the world we live in by adopting new methods of operation that focus on continual learning, taking each experience into account when new challenges arise.” I believe this is critical.
Hey Elysse, thanks for sharing. My heart is still so torn at times when it comes to this too, so I feel you on it being a troublesome space in your context. While there is still a lot of room for growth in every country, these concepts are much more widely discussed, accepted, and encouraged in the Global North than they are in the Global South.
One large leadership challenge for many organizations here in Thailand has to do with cross-cultural communication, however not in the way one might assume. It’s between the old and the young. The young are grappling with how to balance deep respect shown to one’s elders ( a very important value here) while still feeling empowered to share their opinions and make changes that go against someone who may be their senior, age-wise but have less positional power. At the same time, older leaders are grappling with the friction of change that in their eyes doesn’t always feel necessary.
It brings me back to how so central to threshold concepts are self-concept/identity and one’s willingness to enter in.
Hi, Ms. Nkemontoh, I learn a lot from your posting and I agree with that what you indicated that small three letter word, “aha,” as a definition of the crossing through the threshold concept or overcoming barriers. One example, when I was doing the footnote on this postings, I always type it as I post without even asking anyone to help with it. Then, I tried using word to type my postings before posting, then I used the word feature to insert footnote. I kind of crossing that barrier but not fully, I still need to ask the right question to so I fully experience the “aha” moment. Thanks again, for your postings.