I had the pleasure of attending a Masterclass with Beverley Alimo-Metcalfe last week and came away thinking of how everything is intertwined. The notion of leadership and how it works( or in some cases doesn’t) is so instrumental in the health and well being of people and the ability of people to be innovative.
Our understanding of leadership is evolving and changing . The world is becoming more complex and requires different leadership from when things were either in crisis or life itself was simpler. Leaders now need to be agile, flexible and recognise that there are many who have ideas who are around them. These ideas need to be explored and exploited. In fact innovation does not come from the top but rather from the people within the organisation. Leaders need to stop beating people up for being innovative, taking risks and making mistakes. Alternatively all of this needs to be encouraged by the leader with recognition that learning and exploration and combined wisdom is what is powerful. How nicely this all interlinks with the Cognitive Edge approach which is underpinned by complexity theory, and anthropology. It recognises the wisdom of the crowd and that the distributed cognition of people is how ideas flourish. It recognises the need to experiment and do probes in a complex world……….in other words it demands things of our leaders that are now emerging as vital in leadership thought.
Most of all the notion of heroic leadership is now dead and can be seen to be down right dangerous when it leads to destructive acts. Leaders are now vlaued who are humble and engaged and have solid people skills of respect for people in their organisation and demonstrate this clearly in their interactions and behavoirs.