25 Best Articles On Reimagining Leadership
Jim Hamill (Dr)
Director at Future Ready Toolkits - supporting organisations become future ready for an increasingly volatile and digital world.
“In an era of pervasive uncertainty, leaders need to adopt a more humble, open and committed approach to thrive under these circumstances......To be successful, all organizations will need not only different leaders but also a whole new style of leadership…..We need to turn our traditional thinking about leadership on its head. We can no longer afford to rely on heroic leaders who are inveterate risk-takers, from whom we want confident certainties to allay our anxieties, and whom we place on pedestals far above the rest of us (think quintessential wartime Winston Churchill). Instead, what we need today are anti-Churchillian leaders - leaders who admit to their limitations, are open about challenges, and reduce the distance between them and us.’
“The greatest danger in times of turbulence is not the turbulence, it is to act with yesterday’s logic (Drucker). Perhaps it is high time to rethink the logic of leadership.”
Pre-pandemic research from MIT reporting that only 12 percent of the senior executives surveyed ‘strongly agreed’ that business leaders in their organisation had the right mindsets to lead them forward in an uncertain world. Only 9 percent agreed that they had the skills at the top of their organisation to thrive in the digital economy.
A Chief Executive survey concluded that nearly half of the CEOs polled (47 percent) reported that they felt ‘hanging in there’ or ‘out of their depth’ when it comes to leading a digitally innovative company.?
An HBR paper highlighting an emerging leadership crisis at the very top of our organisations, especially when it comes to leveraging the full potential of digital technologies.?“The pandemic has exposed executives who have not been up to the challenge of a rapid technological pivot. In some cases, the wrong leaders are in place. The next few years will see a top management revolution as the chasm widens between the digitally savvy haves and the traditional have-nots.”
"For a better shot at landing the top job, aspiring CEOs should set aside their slide presentations and work on their listening skills instead. Companies are increasingly seeking socially adept leaders - not charismatic smooth-talkers, but executives who listen empathetically, welcome input, and rally the workforce around a common goal."
"Research suggests that arrogance increases the propensity to engage in?corrupt and antisocial behaviour. Delusions of grandeur inhibit self-control, restraint, and empathy while perpetuating their own illusions of immunity to consequences, further fuelling their parasitic behaviour. It’s as if we humans are hard-wired to fall into traps of our own making." Not too difficult to think of examples.
?"Most organisations are not adequately equipped to meet the challenges of an increasingly digital and rapidly transforming world. Modern?industry leaders?have been trained to think and operate in centralized, siloed, hierarchical structures, to focus on efficiency and predictability in order to scale reliable, consistent delivery of products and services.....But there is a huge need to ditch the 20th-century playbook and old-school style leadership. Instead of adapting the present mandate for a breakthrough, we now need responsive thinking by practicing an inclusive and dynamic form of leadership that focuses on building new, more expansive practices committed to human-centric innovation, regenerative solutions, and the creation of long-term value."
Is your Board equipped for the transformation challenge? Dramatic market disruptions have forced business models to transform, but boards remain largely unchanged, leaving them ill-equipped to deal with changing societal pressures. Interesting new report from EY on the Board of the Future.
Interesting research via LSE. Do the 360-degree feedback tools used in leadership development programmes, such as the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire, encourage ‘unethical’ leadership? For example, “transformational leadership theory (and, consequently, the MLQ), claims leaders are the source of ‘idealised influence’ over followers. According to this notion, leaders are charismatic, confident, powerful, values and mission-driven individuals who instil their followers with pride. However, to see oneself in this way means regarding oneself as superior to others, which is problematic. Ethical leaders should instead be guided by a basic moral principle according to Kant, namely that all persons are of equal intrinsic merit.”
As we reimagine the whole concept of leadership for an era of pervasive uncertainty, productive dialogue becomes critical - the ability for leadership teams to challenge, debate and discuss key issues in a manner that progresses the issues and leaves minimal relational scars. In too many organisations, the dialogue gets shut down too quickly. Some good advice here on building an environment conducive to productive dialogue.
A World Economic Forum paper on why empathy is a must-have business strategy.
Yes!!!!! Short and straight to the point. “Too often, the task of implementing change falls to one siloed team, whether it be a dedicated transformation task force, or senior management itself. But such a blinkered approach overlooks a key pillar of success, which is that the whole company - not just a select few experts - must be united together if real, long-lasting change is to be achieved. Without this, projects either end up focussing on the wrong areas or stagnating due to lack of wider company buy-in.”
领英推荐
Via McKinsey. Over the course of the pandemic, businesses have embraced new ways of working supported by digital technology. But on its own, this will not be enough. To prepare for the post-COVID-19 era, leaders need to do more than fine-tune their day-to-day tasks; they need to be ready and willing to rethink how they operate, and even why they exist. Step back, take a breath, and consider a broader perspective. The pandemic has both revealed and accelerated a number of trends?that will play a substantial role in the shape of the future global economy.
From The Drucker Forum. “For the last three decades, the dominant narrative has been that business is about profit maximisation at the expense of other factors, human and environmental. However, as a consequence of Covid-19, we finally do have a fundamental change in mood.?People are again ready for a new narrative, but we need to ensure the change in mood translates into a change in the dominant philosophy of management.”
A useful primer covering the key models/frameworks of change leadership and change management.
Are you stuck in a logic box - making analytical-based decisions and choices which make sense? But in a VUCA world, what happens if you are operating in the wrong box?
Interesting from John Kotter and colleagues. “The single biggest challenge we face as teams, organizations, and society at large is to adapt fast enough to match the increasing uncertainty and complexity around us.?And since all indications?are that increasing volatility, complexity, and rapid change is the new normal, organizations will need to find new ways to mobilize their employees?to actively participate in gathering insights, creating solutions, and providing leadership”. The authors outline an emerging framework for how leaders can handle this rapid pace of change, by managing the two-channel system hardwired into all humans: the Survive Channel, which is activated by threats and leads to feelings of fear, anxiety, and stress; and the Thrive Channel, which is activated by opportunities and is associated with feelings of excitement, passion, and joy.
Via The Drucker Forum. “There is a need to change the current management model around a human imperative. The emergence of a VUCA environment has led to a re-thinking of what it takes for companies to survive and succeed. One of the new basic management principles of ‘management of the firm’ in the 21st?century, is to put a human imperative at the very core of the organization. With an increasing threat from born-digital companies in every industry, traditional firms will need to be proactive in transforming their own business models and organizations, becoming more human-centric in the process.”
Via MIT. “One success after another builds greater self-confidence. But in the same way, increased achievement can skew healthy self-confidence into hubris. Hubristic people can easily become hooked on their own egos, so confident in their own self-importance that they assume they can do no wrong. Naturally, the more wins an individual with the Midas touch accumulates, the less open they are to critical feedback: Why would a winner need feedback when they already have the code to success?”
“We put a lot of emphasis on leadership within organisations.....extolling the virtues of visionary leadership, transformational leadership, servant leadership, and transparent leadership. While great leaders might inspire people with a compelling vision, it is the manager who helps their people understand how their work fits into that vision, what will be expected of them in their roles, how they will be held accountable for their work and ensures that they have the tools and resources they need to be successful. Emerging from a global pandemic, great managers matter more than ever before."
Welcome back! “Thing is, we have a once-in-a-generation chance to build office work from the ground up: to re-evaluate the old nine-to-five, to relocate city centre offices that don’t have any real reason to be in there, to let people work tight four-day weeks to let their life breathe around their jobs, to allow people to take dentist appointments in the middle of the day, to realise that working smart is better than the old-fashioned idea of working hard. We could even consider not cutting pay from people for taking – in the middle of a global emergency – an opportunity to have more flexible working, and even offer (gasp) pay rises to the key workers who chugged on through it throughout. But we won’t do any of that because the people in charge have only ever got to their positions by turning up to the office every day for years in a row, even when they had a cold, and as a result “discipline” is the only working mechanic they understand, and now we’ll be stuck with it until the sun burns us out of the sky”
A new Gartner Report highlights a growing gap between executive and employee perceptions on the future of hybrid work, flexibility and the overall employee experience. Executives think they have a culture of flexibility - employees don't; only 66% of employees agree they have the technology they need to effectively work remotely, compared to 80% of executives; 41% of employees agree that senior leadership acts in their best interest, compared to 69% of executives; executives think they listen but employees disagree; executives hear one thing and employees another in terms of internal communications; executives feel greater purpose than employees. A failure to address this divide will have serious consequences.
Most of the world’s problems are caused by bad leadership. We are so seduced by confidence that we habitually end up with overconfident, arrogant leaders. The challenge is exacerbated now because the key qualities needed in leadership roles today are markedly different from those that served earlier societies well. 'Who you are' has become much more important than 'who you know' or 'what you know'.
Is it time to pay equal attention to followership as well as leadership? Interesting thoughts in this article on Celebrating Followership.
Take care.
Jim H
Geomatics | Real Estate - Engineering - Construction | Strategy & Foresight | Operations & PMO | Transformative Leader (Governance-People-Processes-Technology) | Write & Speak on Strategy & Project Management & AI
2 年Thanks for sharing