LEADERSHIP | FUTURE
A Simple Reflection on Leadership for Tomorrow
The future is unwritten
As we stare down an economic crisis, organizational success can no longer be measured by profit and loss columns alone.
Today organizations are also faced with a greater challenge — survival.
Society too.
In order to survive and grow in new ways, organizations must rely on their most important resource — people.
Drucker (2001) wrote:
“The leaders who work most effectively, it seems to me, never say “I.” And that’s not because they have trained themselves not to say “I.”
They don’t think “I.”
They think “we”; they think “team.” They understand their job to be to make the team function.
They accept responsibility and don’t sidestep it, but “we” gets the credit.
This is what creates trust, what enables you to get the task done.”
— Peter Drucker
The traditional segregation of leaders, managers, and employees is being usurped by new organizational structures.
The emergence of new styles of leadership highlights the difference between leaders and managers.
The divide is widening.
Aspiring managers too often default to a command and control method to lead direct reports.
Toxic leaders encourage this.
This is flawed.
Leaders empower, enlighten, and enable the success of their followers.
For leaders to carry this out requires the existence and utilization of a trait that in the past some considered a weakness — emotional intelligence.
We need more female leaders at the top table.
Followership has taken on heightened importance. Distinct from the traditional role of subservient in generations past.
Followers hold true power today.
Without the efforts of followers, the vision, mission, and values laid out by leaders cannot be brought to fruition.
Other challenges that leaders face are the methods and channels through which their message is communicated, effectively.
And how they communicate.
“The most important thing in communication is to hear what isn’t being said.”
— Peter Drucker
Leadership skills are still required to inspire and ignite follower motivations to create an environment in which everyone can flourish.
We still wonder how can the manager of yesteryear change to successfully identify, act, and deliver upon all the above?
In doing so managers can morph into our leaders for tomorrow.
We hope.
Are leaders in power today leading and teaching the next generation?
We fear.
Tony warns of The Psychopath in Chief.
We question.
And now we think.
Tomorrow is ours if we choose to lead today.
“Make this Moment the Turning Point for Real Change”
— Barack Obama
