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The Changing Role of Leadership

Guest post by: Roger Ingbretsen

Article Overview: The road ahead is unchartered and most people will be faced with tremendous change and an increasing feeling of losing control. Many will have to learn a new approach to dealing with life in the knowledge age. To a very large degree leaders will have to play strong new roles as coaches, mediators, mentors and team builders.

The Changing Role of Leadership

Intuition and experience have shown me that “traditional” management does not work very well especially in the new information age environment. The changing diversity of the workplace, global competition, new technology and the present economic environment all demand new thinking. I’ve witnessed a paradigm shift – a change in the fundamental rules of how work is accomplished and how effective leadership takes place. I’ve seen the need to organize differently so people can be more successful in the work place. I’ve had the pleasure of experiencing working conditions, which at least partially embraced new thinking, and also experienced the frustration of old management styles being applied in an information age setting. These experiences have compelled me to share my insights in an attempt to help shift thinking with regard to leadership.

The emergence of the information age, with its tool the computer, has touched virtually everyone within modern society. The ubiquity of the information age has produced changes at a speed and scope far beyond anything anyone could have predicated. Overnight, intellectual capital has become more valuable and more powerful than the big factories and large companies of the industrial age. Brainpower, intuition and the ability to deploy innovation at warp speed are now considered the means of creating new wealth in the new economy. Survival of the fittest equates to the “knowledge person” or “learning organization” having the best possible chance of success now and in the future. I subscribe to the belief that we are living in revolutionary times as opposed to evolutionary times. The quicker and better we can understand the forces – the uncontrollable patterns – reshaping our world, the greater the possibility of coping with and even enjoying, the uncertainties that will come our way.

For many years I’ve read and studied thousands of printed pages dealing with leadership and organizational structure. From command-and-control leadership to self-directed teams and everything in between, I’ve personally witnessed both the success and failure of how people work within many types of organizational settings. These life experiences have made me realize that the search for the right answer to the leadership question will take others and me down a long and ever changing road. Interestingly, during this search I have become at the same time both pessimist and optimist, highly suspect of words like surefire strategies, the complete answer, always, never, and one size fits all; but encouraged by the language of strategy, flow, patterns, systemic, creativity, and innovation.

The more I study and write about leadership, work culture, change, innovation and individual beliefs and motivation, the more I realize that curiosity and the acquisition of new knowledge always leads to a search for more new knowledge. Just when I think, “the answer is at hand” a new question surfaces, which requires deeper probing and introspection. With regard to the overarching subject of organizational dynamics, age and experience have taught me the humility of knowing that neither I nor anyone else will ever develop “the” complete answer to the question “What is the best way to structure an organization and lead people?” The subject is so broad and complex that it is somewhat like being asked to define all the intricacies of the sea and sky.

Through the teacher of time, I’ve also learned that it is virtually impossible to control anything of importance. I’ve watched wars start and end, countries form and disintegrate, friends come and go and our world culture change dramatically. Like all of us, I’ve witnessed the complexity of nature play its ever-changing game of both displaying destructive power and breathtaking beauty. I’ve also seen the end of the industrial age and the beginning and continuation of the unbelievable advancements that technology has brought. These examples and more have all occurred completely out of my control. But, time has also taught me that in spite of our lack of control, we should take every opportunity we can, to influence and have a positive impact on ourselves and the people and events around us.

We live in chaotic times, which only seem to get even more hectic, confusing and out of our control. Individuals and organizations have to survive and thrive in an environment of ambiguity and continuous change, where outcomes are increasingly unknowable. As we gain more knowledge, and technology continues to grow at its fast pace, I see even greater challenges ahead. Can we better prepare ourselves to meet these new challenges? I believe we can, but it will be difficult. The road ahead is unchartered and most people will be faced with tremendous change and an increasing feeling of losing control. Many will have to learn a new approach to dealing with life in the knowledge age. To a very large degree leaders will have to play strong new roles as coaches, mediators, mentors and team builders. They will have to truly believe and support the fact that “people… smart, talented, and knowledgeable people are the most important asset of virtually any organization.” Leaders will need to develop a culture that nurtures and brings out the very best in those they lead.

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Article Tags: leadership, mediators, mentors, team builders



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