Walk With Me: Lessons in Transcendent Leadership (Higher Education Leadership & Study of Historically Black Colleges and Universities)

Walk With Me: Lessons in Transcendent Leadership is a powerful exploration of leadership beyond position and performance―offering a visionary model rooted in spiritual intelligence, ethical courage, and communal elevation. Authored by Dr. Hakim J. Lucas, a transcendent higher education leader, this book reimagines what it means to lead in institutions facing complexity, constraint, and change―especially in the context of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), faith-based organizations, and social-impact institutions.

Transcendent leadership, as defined in this work, is not hierarchical but relational. It is not driven by ego or authority, but by authenticity, resilience, and divine purpose. Through deeply reflective storytelling, institutional case studies, and African fables, Dr. Lucas offers a leadership framework that values transparency over perfection, process over position, and people over politics.

More than a personal memoir or leadership manual, Walk With Me is an invitation: for presidents, provosts, pastors, and changemakers to lead with soul, serve with integrity, and walk with those they lead―not ahead or above, but beside. In a time when higher education, especially at mission-driven institutions, requires bold vision and prophetic imagination, this book is a guide for becoming the kind of leader who not only transforms―but transcends. This is not just leadership. This is a walk of purpose.

Hakim J. Lucas is the President/CEO of Virginia Union University, USA.