Jane Seiling, PhD is an Organization Development consultant, business writer, and adjunct faculty member, teaching organizational effectiveness courses at the masters level. Her current activities include six years as a senior content editor of a book series. Jane brings to her interests and work 20+ years working inside organizations, a BA in Business and Human Resource Management, a masters in Organization Development, and a Phd in social science (with an emphasis on responsibility and accountability in the organizational context). Her current interests and writings are in leadership facilitation and education, “sensemaking” in organizations, combination capability, and communication issues in the workplace that enhance relationships through constructive accountability activities. An interest in nonprofit organizations has brought her to a focus on leadership, change and capacity building in the nonprofit sector.

Jane’s studies and experiences inside organizations have brought forward unique understandings of the real working world. Her thinking on leadership suggests that leaders must lead in ways that invite members to contribute to the enhancement of personal, group, and organizational achievement. She consulted in South Africa, working on issues regarding team conflict, advocacy issues, women’s issues in the workplace, and communication in high performance groups.

Jane’s belief that all members must actively contribute to and share in responsibility and accountability for organizational achievement, wherever they perform in the organization, has greatly influenced her work and writing. Her work is also oriented toward a social constructionist viewpoint of organizing. In 2001, she initiated a focus book series, sponsored by the Taos Institute, on social constructionist ideas, currently including eight books in the series. This viewpoint approaches organizations as a co-constructed phenomena that places responsibility and accountability for organizational achievement solidly in the minds and hands of each member. This makes it imperative that willing and effective partnerships occur across blurred lines within organizations.