About Jeannel

Dr. Jeannel King is an author, speaker, coach, consultant, and pracademic (practitioner + academic) who lives in San Diego, California. She holds a PhD in psychology with a specialization in creativity, innovation, and leadership from Saybrook University as well as a master’s degree in nonprofit management from Regis University. Her work focuses on the intersections of creativity, spirituality, organizational change, and self-actualization. A qualitative researcher, Dr. King’s recent research illuminated the nature and essence of living a calling in organizational change contexts and introduced the Living a Calling Relational Life Cycle to the research field.

An academic and practitioner, Jeannel has over twenty years of experience designing and facilitating change experiences for individuals and organizations. She is a certified Edgewalker facilitator and the founder and Chief Possibilities Officer of Unfamiliar Ways, a boutique consultancy specializing in helping individuals discover, navigate, and live their callings with creativity, joy, and deep satisfaction. Before that, Jeannel was the national collaboration director, then national creativity and innovation director, for a U.S.-based commercial construction company. Prior to this role, Jeannel ran a successful visual facilitation consultancy and worked in various nonprofit management and executive roles. She is currently an adjunct professor at Saybrook University, where she teaches courses in the Department of Humanistic Psychology on creativity, innovation, leadership, consciousness, spirituality, and integrative health.

Dr. King’s work has been recognized in several arenas throughout the world. In 2021, Jeannel was honored as a Fetzer Scholar by the Fetzer Institute. In 2022, she received the Academy of Management’s MSR Promising Dissertation Award and was an invited scholar and speaker at the International Association of Management, Spirituality, and Religion Conference in Vienna, Austria. In 2023, Saybrook University awarded Jeannel with the Rollo May Scholarship in recognition of her work carrying forward his existential-humanistic contributions to the field of psychology. In 2024, Dr. King was an invited speaker at the Possibility Studies Network conference in Cambridge, England, and was made a Junior Member of the International Society for the Study of Creativity and Innovation (ISSCI).

A past president of the International Forum of Visual Practitioners (IFVP), Jeannel now volunteers as the Secretary/Archivist of the Management, Spirituality, and Religion (MSR) division of the Academy of Management and a reviewer for Academy of Management conference submissions. She also hosts the academic writing community at the London Writers Salon and serves as an academic success coach for graduate students and doctoral candidates.

When not doing the above, Jeannel keeps her sanity by watching cheesy movies with her robot friends, creating collages, listening to science fiction novels, going on adventures, and spending time with her partner (Jamie) and cat (Wilhelmina Crabbycakes).

Research Interests

Creativity, spirituality, calling, living a calling, agency, creative-spiritual agency, self-actualization, transcendence, purpose-driven lives, meaningful work, organizational change, organizational transformation

King, J. E. (2024). (R)Evolutions: Experiences of Living a Calling in Organizational Change (Order No. 31142334) [Doctoral dissertation, Saybrook University]. ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global. https://www.proquest.com/pqdtglobal/docview/3066180320/AD368BF6D5094915PQ/1?%20Theses&accountid=34120&sourcetype=Dissertations%20

King, J. (2023) Inside job: Exploring meaningful work through creative-spiritual agency. In J. Marques (Ed.), The Palgrave handbook of fulfillment, wellness, and personal growth at work (pp. 183-208). Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-35494-6_10

King, J. (2023). Not over but through: Toward a new model for facilitating organizational transition. In A. K. Maheshwari (Ed.), Consciousness-based leadership and management, volume 2: Organizational and cultural approaches to oneness and flourishing (pp. 223–242). Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-05839-4_11  

King, J. (2022). Future possibilities for the field of management, spirituality, and religion. White paper presented at the International Association of Management, Spirituality, and Religion (IAMSR), September 7-8, 2022, Vienna, Austria.

King, J. (2019). One visual meeting creates one huge shift. In J. Blijsie, T. Hammons, & R. S. Smith (Eds.), The world of visual facilitation: Unlock your power to connect people and ideas (pp. 372–378). The Visual Connection Publishers.

King, J. (2014). Draw forth: How to host your own visual conversations without having to be a professional artist or a full-on facilitator. Papumiho Press.

King, J. E. (2007). Learning to co-create the solutions we seek: The art of hosting a nonprofit organization (Publication No. 974) [Masters thesis, Regis University]. Regis University Student Publications (comprehensive collection). https://epublications.regis.edu/theses/974

Conference Presentations and Invited Talks