About the Journal
Aims & Objectives of the Journal
The International Journal of Presencing Leadership & Coaching (IJPLC) is an annual peer-reviewed publication focusing on contributing to the greater emerging global field of presencing research. Supportive of presencing scholarship that has the potential to break new ground and further evolve practice, the IJPLC is chiefly interested in providing a generative inquiry space to advance the development of both Theory U-based presencing research and what Gunnlaugson (2023) describes as emerging presencing approaches, particularly in leadership & coaching contexts.
The International Journal of Presencing Leadership & Coaching encourages a broad cross section of traditional and progressive research methods, including action-oriented, theoretical and conceptual approaches. The IJPLC also encourages multi- and inter-disciplinary thinking from first, second- and third-person perspectives, inviting new exploratory presencing research from a broad array of disciplinary fields including leadership, organizational studies, coaching, education, psychology, applied arts, consciousness studies among many others.
As an open-source, peer-reviewed online international journal, the IJPLC is particularly interested in submissions that bring to light new thinking, discoveries and possible innovations at the periphery of existing practices of presencing in leadership and coaching contexts.
Background
The roots of presencing can be broadly traced back to different Eastern, Indigenous, and global wisdom traditions, including early Greek practice. Presencing has also been explored in contemporary western thought through the works of existential philosopher Martin Heidegger. In the early 2000s, organizational consultants Peter Senge, Joseph Jaworski, Otto Scharmer, and colleagues developed the term in a new direction in their consulting work and book Presence, bringing the practice of presencing to mainstream awareness. Framed as an integrative leadership approach and method for learning from the emerging future, over the past several decades exposure and interest in presencing has continued through Scharmer and colleagues’ more recent work with Theory U and ULAB as an awareness-based change approach supported by a growing global community of practitioners, researchers and organizations.
The earlier thinking of Francisco Varela’s phenomenological method, Joseph Jaworski’s storied journey of Source as an inner path of knowledge creation, and more recently Gunnlaugson’s work with Dynamic Presencing introduced methods for engaging the deep interior dimensions of presencing practice. However, aside from these contributions, the deeper underlying territory of presencing theory and practice has yet to be substantively theorized about or researched. To address this, the International Journal of Presencing Leadership & Coaching invites emerging presencing approaches that foster new thinking, research and practice that further this and related veins of inquiry in leadership and coaching contexts.
With the increasing global awareness of presencing theory and practice, the International Journal of Presencing Leadership & Coaching looks forward to furthering the development and evolution of presencing practice into new horizons as well as this emerging field. As a scholar-practitioner journal, the IJPLC is committed to strengthening, cohering and advancing different forms and approaches to presencing-based research in leadership and coaching contexts in the years and decades ahead.
