The 60 years since the 2nd World War has seen unprecedented economic growth and personal materialism. It has arguably been to the detriment of the planet and the moral fibre of humanity. This has culminated in a financial and economic crisis not witnessed during this period or even during the entire lives of most of us.
Has this occurred because of the prevalent ego-based style of leadership that has focused on personal reward and power, prestige and self aggrandisement? If so, what are we going to do differently to ensure a worthwhile future for generations to come?
Every crisis provides opportunity. This is a unique time to change the form of leadership of our nations, organisations and businesses. Many would agree that it requires authenticity, a return to core values and ethical behaviour, as well as maximising the opportunity for everyone but without losing the aspiration of sustainable improved performance.
The last 10 – 15 years has seen an accelerating change to our world in such areas as technology, communication, availability of information, social change, globalisation and fear for the future of the planet. On the plus side emotional intelligence has developed as a very useful science to enable people manage their personalities and function more effectively.
Even more recently we have seen the emergence of thinking on spiritual intelligence although often it is too related to the mystical, religious and even magical, rather than based on personal conscience and self determination (that can transcend religions or the absence of it). This can provide for a transpersonal leadership which is beyond the ego and focuses on all stakeholders connected to an organisation.
Finally, research in the field of neuroscience has introduced us to many new insights into how the brain functions (usually consistent with modern theories of psychology). What is particularly pertinent is that our brains have not changed genetically since stone-age man 250,000 years ago. So our predisposition to how we think about leadership can only change through the impact of the environment we live in or from our own will to change our neural pathways. For example, we humans have a predisposition to think leadership is “knowing everything and telling people what to do” – and that simply does not work in this century, especially as we cannot retain in our heads even 10% of what we need to know today.
To achieve this new leadership, leaders need as a first step to be more attuned to the emotions of themselves and others – ie develop a high level of emotional intelligence. This provides the platform for leaders to allow themselves through greater self awareness to bring their good values to the surface and have the inner confidence to act on them.
Organisations will change their leaders regularly but it is questionable whether the replacements will be any better unless we change how we choose leaders and perhaps more importantly how we develop them.
So what should the strategy be to produce and place the leaders we need and even more importantly in the context of this blog, HOW do we actually develop people who can meet the new demands of leadership in the rest of the 21st century? I have my views but what are yours?
John Knights is Chairman of LeaderShape, to find out more about LeaderShape click here, the neuroscience of leadership click here and transpersonal leadership click here.