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What's it all about, Alfie?
I thought a good place to start with the articles would be an overview of the kind of things I want to cover on the site. Sooooo where to start, where to start. I guess it all really revolves around challenges and leadership.
Challenges in that, as our world gets faster and more complex, we are going to be facing more adaptive challenges than we already are...challenges that are hard to define, have numerous stakeholders (many of whom stand to lose from the problem being solved), require significant change and are beyond the scope of current knowledge and experience.
And leadership because our current paradigm of entrusting leadership to one person, or a small group of people, isn't going to work anymore...the adaptive challenges, both old and new, are just too big and too complex for this kind of leadership, even with our leaders best intentions.
So new models are needed, models that shift away from the current thinking that our leaders have all the answers. Models like :
- Distributed Leadership models, that suggest that everyone has a contribution to make to leadership, regardless of their role within the organisation, group or indeed society in general. The contributions will be different but they are all valuable in helping the to truly understand the environment we find ourselves in and what might work in addressing the challenges that we face. As Gary Hamel suggests in his article 'Waking up IBM', IBM might not be the company it is today had not a band of lower level 'rebels' dragged it into the internet age.
- Adaptive Leadership, that shifts the focus of the leadership role away that of the big decision maker to one whose primary responsibility is to identify the stakeholders and then create the environment in which the they can more clearly define the challenge, their part in the mess and their role in the solution. Can we ever truly solve the drug problem without the input of the drug users themselves and yet how often are they included in the discussion?
- Servant Leadership, where the leaders primary focus is to take care of the needs of their staff in the belief that they, in turn, will take care of the organisation. A concept that is bound to polarise any class I teach...and yet one that is firmly embedded in the military and many successful businesses.
- Or the various Followership models that recognise the importance of followers and provide frameworks for identifying and developing good followers within organisations or groups.
Hmmmm, are any of you still with me? I hope so because all of these concepts, and others, will be explored further as the site develops. I think you are going to find some of the stuff very interesting...or challenging and thought provoking if nothing else. But for now, a fond adieu! :-)