Leading into the Unknown Future

“When nothing is sure, everything is possible.” – Margaret Drabble

Everything changes and it always has.

The reality of the speed of changes that occur in today’s world presents us with the problem that many of our old ideas no longer benefit us or keep us on the cutting edge in our fields.

The business world has termed these market changes as disruptive innovation and it’s time the educational world embraced the concept.

We have to make a choice as leaders:

1. Either keep plodding along, doing the best we can with old theories, old paradigms and old ways of “how we’ve always done it around here” OR
2. Become disruptive leaders who no longer wait for the world to define our reality for us.

I’m an educational leader, so my market may be a little different, but

I have no interest in waiting for someone to tell me how to prepare my schools and my students for the unknown future.

If our current reality changes so rapidly due to disruptive innovations, then how is someone else going to know what that unknown future holds? Doesn’t it make sense that my team and I are just as likely to be able to create disruptions that will improve the outcomes for our students?

My organization is full of front-line experts who are capable of developing fabulously innovative ideas.

They have spent their careers adapting to whatever new “change” we implement from the top-down. Every school year begins with the newest, greatest thing that is going to propel us into excellence. And every year, nothing, or very little, actually changes in the quality of our product (students) or our place in the market.

Why not leverage that internal expertise and empower our teams to be creative and to push the boundaries of the comfortable and the known?

If our organizations are to survive and thrive, then I propose we must make the second choice and become disruptive leaders who create the realities within our fields, instead of simply responding, too late and too slowly, to someone else’s disruption.

We must own our role in designing our educational world and doing what is best for our students. We must disrupt the complacent, reactionary ways in which our organizations respond to the changing marketplace and the ever oppressive (sorry, I meant ever-present) governmental mandates.

1. We must anticipate and depend upon the certainty that tomorrow will be NOTHING like today. We MUST create learning environments where we teach our students to think creatively, collaborate and problem solve.
2. We must adapt quickly and seamlessly to the changing world around us and implement disruptive, new, crazy ideas that will make tomorrow better for our students.
3. We must propel (not drag, not trot, not ease) our schools into the future with urgent visions of what we must become.
   

Lead your teams into the disruptive future. Paint a vision for your organization that is focused on innovative change and that clearly lays out the expectation that all members must be onboard and constantly involved in helping to creatively design the future.

As the leader, YOU will create the culture, the opportunities for creative collaboration and the expectation that your team members WILL be exceptional disruptors who change the future.

You’ll be responsible for not only creating the culture that encourages creativity, but for recognizing those exceptional ideas from your front-liners and implementing them with all haste.

As the leader, you will NEVER be able to singlehandedly disrupt your organization so that it thrives in the new unknown. You will, however, be able to lead your people into achieving that very thing. It isn’t your innovation that will change the world, it is theirs.

I say disruptive leaders make the future happen. What say you?

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