Even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there………
Will Rogers, American humorist
The world has changed in some way since I started writing this. Urban legend has it that the amount of information generated in the years between 2010 and 2015 is equal to, if not greater than, all the information generated since the dawn of recorded history. Clearly life is different now. It’s not the same world that our parents grew up in and it won’t be the same world when our children take the helm. It’s no small wonder that we sometimes feel as though we’re out of touch. What we once thought of as fact has been rewritten, superseded or thrown into the garbage heap of history. And it’s happening in every sphere of our life, constantly and at an ever increasing rate. If that’s the world we’re in and we want to be successful, we’ll need to change the way we’re doing things.
Clearly what has worked in the past is not guaranteed to work in the future. While this will hold true in many areas of endeavour, it is painfully obvious in dealing with leadership. It doesn’t really matter which sphere of life we look to – social, political, religious, business – leadership concepts in all these areas are undergoing a dramatic change. The basis for many of our historical leadership models is no longer viewed as the answer to the problems of our modern world. The command and control structure so prevalent in the past demands an omnipotent, authoritarian leader seemingly impervious to the changes in the environment occurring around them. While this style may have led to success in many instances in the past (think of WW II, the Space Race, IBM in the 70’s) it is clear that change is needed if the organizations and institutions that we have come to rely on are to continue to justify that reliance in our brave new world.
Our leadership models need to move to a more “adaptive” mode; one that encompasses a greater recognition of the rapidly changing environment. Over many seasons, teams in professional sports have adapted their organizations and personnel to the changes in which they operate: relief pitchers, defensive and offensive specialists, increasing the number of coaches and co-ordinators, statistical analysis, salary caps, and free agency to name but a few of the multitude of “adaptations”. Changes like these don’t just happen. Perceptive leaders see a new “opportunity” and move to adapt their organization to the “new reality”. History is replete with examples from all areas of human endeavour where organizations were either unable to see an environment that was changing, or were unable to adapt to a new world (recent examples could include Xerox, Kodak or perhaps closer to home Blackberry).
We look to our leaders to help find solutions to the problems we encounter. Without adapting to new environments, leadership can only go where others have gone before. It’s time for our ideas on leadership to adapt to our new world.
