The Greatest Question of our Time & the Leadership Needed to Address it

How do we reset the foundation of our participatory democracies to have the complex, vulnerable, multifaceted conversations we need to move our communities forward?

It seems to me that a universal difficulty we face in meeting the challenges of our time originates from a syndrome from which we all suffer; the human condition. Whilst poets, musicians, painters, and visual and performance artists of all kinds might portray the human condition in their work, it is a condition universal to us all. There is no cure. Try as we might, there is no drug or action we can take to resolve this condition. You and I suffer with it by virtue of being human.

In our increasingly complex world, the knowledge required to understand even a single discipline is beyond the capacity of any individual. Science, law, medicine, engineering – seemingly any discipline within any field – are riddled with specialisations. I am not against deep knowledge and specialisation, but common issues, by their definition, span a multiplicity of disciplines. I cannot help but think that we have lost something in our incredible accumulation of knowledge and information. As TS Eliot wrote:

Where is the Life we have lost in the living?

Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?

Where is the knowledge we have lost in information??

Our ability to bring together the forms of thinking and approach needed to address the complex issues we face ought to be rudimentary. The fact that it is not is deeply challenging to our ability to have impact within the poly-crisis world we live. ?

In the 17th century, philosophers attempted to explore whether there existed a common genus of all knowledge. Referred to as consilience, modern authors such as the biologist EO Wilson have similarly explored whether, both philosophically and practically, all knowledge is bound together through a common foundation. Whether or not a unifying framework for knowledge exists, the fact remains that we must work together in different ways to collectively harness our ability to address problems as diverse as climate change, pollution of our waterways, inflation challenges or wealth, health, and justice biases (to name but a few). Within industry too, the future is nuanced and relational, not binary and transactional. But what of ‘leadership’ in this nuanced, poly-crisis, and polarized world?

I write this halfway through the 2023 Commonwealth Study Conference. My group is made up of 17 international experts with backgrounds as varied as ed-tech, employee representation, the diplomatic service, academia and educational expertise. Over two weeks we are travelling across Canada – along with 250 similarly diverse colleagues – meeting with community leaders, First Nations representatives, social justice champions, and innovators of every persuasion. Now halfway through, clear themes are emerging. First and foremost is the fact that our personal challenges and those of our countries, are universal. Explanations by our hosts of the challenges they face are consistently met with a sea of 17 nodding heads. Second, we all accept that we need to have better conversations. However, the art and skill underlying our ability to do this is, I fear, dangerously close to disappearing. Encouragingly, there are clear points of agreement on how we might bring these skills back from the brink. ?

It is trite to say that the people of the world will likely disagree more than agree. Even within my group there are fundamental disagreements over any issue you might care to name. What matters however, is that we are like-hearted if not like-minded. We all want the best for ourselves, our families and our communities. We would all like a longer-term approach to ecological sustainability in which our positions as stewards of resources for future generations is more actively nurtured. We are all curious and inquisitive and we are excited about interacting with the perspectives of others.

We are all open to looking at things differently – this is, in part, due to us all having traveled long distances to lean into a conference that is designed to challenge. I hope we all take this willingness to be engaged and challenged back with us when we return to the comfort of our hometowns and cities. We are very respectful of one another and whilst we are not necessarily “friends” (we only met a few days ago) we are all deeply committed to each other’s learning and journey. We hold ourselves and each other to account according to the principles of curiosity and questioning to which we have all subscribed. Although each of us had little understanding of what, exactly, we were coming to, we have each trusted the process. The result has been the development of strong trust within the group and a willingness to listen and be challenged as much as we might seek to challenge other points of view.

True leadership, fit for the pressures of modern society, it seems to me, is not all about leading from the front, being the saviour with all the answers, controlling or dominating discussion or being seen to be the smartest in the room. It is not about winning arguments, being seen as tall only by forcing others to kneel or summarily dismissing points of view that originate from a perspective far from your own.

I started this article provocatively by suggesting a question as the “greatest challenge of our time”. I could, of course, have it wrong. The question I posed could be too human-centred rather than “life-centred” as one of our hosts suggested as our new approach to the future. Perhaps we need to completely reconceptualize our position and relationship with the world. However, for the time being, I am running with the imperative to have better conversations and to radically collaborate to dream and achieve big. In pursuit of this, some traits of modern leadership seem to jump out. ??

Traits not often exalted under the Western notion of leadership are where modern effective leadership ought to primarily lean. What are these traits? Some include vulnerability, an ability to trust and build trust in others, sensitivity to the position of others, compassion, empathy, integrity, “radical transparency”, and caring for the wellbeing of others. These are not attributes of weakness and they are not attributes that mitigate against profit, efficiency, productivity or hard work. In fact, they are attributes, I suspect, that might facilitate the more effective creation of large movements that shift paradigms.

I am only halfway through this trip and with my fellow conference attendees I am committed to asking the hard questions that can only be asked, and answered, after creating an environment of trust, authenticity, honesty and integrity. But it is not easy. After a life of priding myself on my ability to question, I find that my skill in this area needs a lot of work. So too, my ability to listen deeply without forming a new question prior to the completion of the answer. I also must learn not to retaliate through my questions and to hold back from throwing a new proposition into the mix too early. As a start, “I might be wrong, but it seems to me …” is working well for me as a start for when I attempt to frame a contribution. I am hopeful that at the end of the conference I will have more questions than I started – a sign of success in this novel environment. I also hope to have greater insight into how we might all develop as the type of leader our crises – and our families and communities – require.?