Leadership seems to be in short supply these days. This dearth of leadership is present everywhere you look – from politics to banking, from agile tech firms driven by super-ego founders to immobile corporate behemoths trapped in Mayer’s pit. Leadership was recognised in ancient times as being of great importance. Despite this, we seem to have forgotten the lessons of the past.
Such forgetfulness is fuelled by some negative aspects of technology. Our world is filled with 24-hour news, social media and a multitude of blogs. Technology gives everyone a voice, but drives us often to confuse the loudest or most popular answer with the right one. Technology for networking is a huge benefit – but networking cannot substitute for leadership – with ‘Capital-L’ leadership defined as pursuing the ‘Right’ thing, not simply the most popular idea.
The Self-Sacrificial Nature of Good Leadership Great leaders in the past were not driven by pure personal gain. Instead, they actively demonstrated a values-based approach; a belief in contributing to something bigger than themselves. Think Earnest Shackleton. Think William Wilberforce. Think Mary Seacole. Great leadership demands a commitment to building something valuable beyond a simple personal gain. Great leaders lead from the front through demonstration, yet avoid unnecessary self-sacrifice and a resulting separation between leader and follower.
The Challenge of modern leadership Recognising values as vital explains the scarcity of truly great modern Leadership; the individual and cultural agenda is now dominated by an ethos that overtly targets self-benefit. Individual principles now translate the ‘right’ course of action as one which results in the greatest personal benefit – perhaps an inverted extrapolation of Jeremy Bentham’s ideal of the “greatest happiness for the greatest number”.
On this basis, demonstrating Leadership is nearly impossible. Thus, the absence of cohesive, visionary, and trusted leadership is now a huge issue in many areas of human endeavour. The reaction to this absence is widespread cynicism. Modern leaders are caught up in “the game” - trying to spot presumed self-interest motives and making decisions based on imagined “zero-sum” outcomes with clear winners and losers.
Recognising this allows us to define leadership more clearly, by distilling out a set of common Leadership qualities:
An externally based value set which runs beyond self-benefit
The capability to create and communicate an envisioned, shared, outcome without cynicism
The ability to empathise with the aims of the individual as well as the collective
The ability to operate, where necessary, with well-considered (including self) sacrifices
The ability to be decisive, paternalistically if necessary, to pursue the Right outcome
Innovative leadership – all-inclusive, creative and flexible When applying this to innovation, another modern challenge emerges. Much of our current organisational management is reductive, typified by expert functions working in existential silos. Groups and teams within the same organisation work separately and even – in the worst of cases – compete for resources and corporate focus. Self-interest drives an inversion of the above challenges – manifesting as the avoidance of decisions and individual responsibility.
Conversely, innovation is a holistic effort. Here the leader’s role must refute the typical manager’s approach by bringing existential channels together, and providing balance, whilst decisively and publicly pursuing the right course of action. This approach leads to the cessation of hierarchical structures, replacing them with heterarchical structures, which are flexible, engaged and finely tuned to the needs of innovative development.
It is also vital for the leader, development teams, and organisations to operate creatively to drive innovation. This requires the construction of a psychologically safe ‘shelter’ in which creativity may be freely pursued. Instead in many organisations a type of latter-day Talyorism exists, with “command and control” pyramidal structures firmly in place. These operate precisely to constrain creativity among staff – somewhat like the role of a QWERTY keyboard in typing.
Building a team to lead
The high technology environment now demands a new form of teamwork: co-creativity. This approach builds an intentional ‘chemistry’ in the team, whereby the team members collectively have creative energies which cannot exist in isolation. Simply: the team becomes, together, greater than the sum of its parts. This is far beyond the normal organisational mantra of ‘collaboration’ – instead fusing concepts such as Belbin’s team roles with heterarchies. It is exceptionally well-suited to today’s complex working environment – innately and unavoidably multidisciplinary, whilst requiring ‘Capital-L’ leadership to function.
Building for the future
With so many challenges facing society, there has never been a keener need to have leadership, showing the way to a better future. Inescapably, huge amounts of innovation are vital, yet many of the working structures we have created militate precisely against such objectives, designed instead to be highly repetitive with reproducible outcomes. Undoubtedly this reproducibility is of value, but it is not enough. Innovation performance must up-scale to meet the needs of the future. This requires leaders who can dispel self-seeking values and the resultant societal cynicism. Like the longest surviving tribes, we must relearn that belonging to a successful, fair, cooperative society is as vital – or more vital – than personal wealth and success. Our ancestors knew this well. Sadly, we have just forgotten.
