Why Civic Leadership for Social Justice? | Opening Essay: Volume 6, Issue 1, eJournal of Public Affairs

If a just society requires a strong sense of community, it must find a way to cultivate in citizens a concern for the whole, a dedication to the common good. (Sandel, 2009, p. 263)

The world spins on tensions between aspirations for the common good—justice, equality, health, environmental sustainability—and realities that reinforce systems of injustice, blind individuals to the needs of others, and even produce self-destructive cycles of inaction. The current political and social landscape has heightened collective awareness of these tensions; for example, society as a whole affirms the importance of accepting difference but struggles to realize the potential for inclusion and equity in individual, organizational, and systemic practices. Who is responsible for creating real and lasting social change? Often people turn to leaders in formal positions of power to solve larger problems. However, as Chrislip and O’Malley (2013) suggested, “each of us shares directly in the problems and opportunities of civic life, so we bear some responsibility for making progress” (pp. 19-20). To engage in the activity of leadership is to “accept responsibility to create the conditions that enable others to achieve shared purpose in the face of uncertainty” (Ganz, 2010, p. 527). This shared purpose is a pursuit of the common good—an expanding circle of concern moving beyond self to families, organizations, communities, and society as one recognizes his or her role and responsibility in upholding principles of human dignity, equality, and equity (Chrislip & O’Malley, 2013; Grace, 2011). To do so requires individuals to develop not only knowledge and skills, but also motivation and identity as leaders, scholar-practitioners, and educators committed to advancing the claims of justice.