The meaning of leadership has always entailed occupying a static position at the head of a group. Today, we need to see that leadership is an occasional act, not a role.
The fundamental meaning of leadership has not changed in all of recorded history. It has always been about the person in charge of the group. Being a leader has always meant having power over people and the authority to make decisions for the group. We have tweaked the meaning of leadership a little bit, thus moving from dictatorial to more participative styles but the essence has remained basically unchanged for centuries.
What Is Different About the 21st Century?
It is time for a fundamental change in our definition of leadership. To see this, we need to ask what is so different about the context today in which leadership is shown.
- Ours is a knowledge-driven age. Leadership has always been based on power. First it was the physical strength to be the top dog. Then it was the force of personality that counted, all with a view to getting into the top slot in a group hierarchy. These forms of power can be regarded as the triumph of form over substance. That is, it doesn’t matter so much what you say as how you say it. For example, a political candidate with charisma or “sex appeal” could get elected with vague content. But, today we are moving toward the view that “content is king” which is the triumph of substance over form. The problem for traditional conceptions of leadership is that no one can monopolize good ideas so that ongoing dominance is much more difficult when it is based on the power to generate new and better ideas.
- Change is much more rapid today; the world is more dynamic, making it harder to maintain the static state in which one person stays at the head of affairs. Also, if you add complexity, it is much harder for any one person to know what to do and, therefore, to provide the group with direction. It is still possible in small groups such as street gangs, but CEOs of high tech organizations that compete on the basis of rapid innovation have a much harder time of calling the shots.
- The world was once made of discrete groups minding their own business where you were definitively a member of a group or an outsider. Now, there are transients and loose group boundaries, informal networks and strategic partnerships. So-called “boundaryless” organizations are made up of rapidly changing subgroups that come together only for a limited purpose. Who is the stable leader in groups that have no boundaries or which are made up of loosely connected networks of small groups?
- A corollary of the previous point is that the dynamics between groups are just as important as those within groups. Alhough we never talk about it, there has always been leadership between groups. Companies like Apple show leadership to competitors and one country can show leadership to another, say by adopting innovative green practices. The key point about inter-group leadership is that it is not a role, let alone a dominant one. Such leadership is only an occasional act.
- In modern organizations, knowledge workers are not compliant drones. They want to have their say regarding how the organization functions. In the old days, we could label their contributions suggestion-box material, but this is too patronizing today. The reality is that, when knowledge workers advocate better ways of doing things, they are showing leadership, even if it is an occasional act and they have no interest or skills to attain a formal leadership role.
How the Meaning of Leadership Needs to Change
Leadership that is shown by one group to another shares a very important feature with the occasional leadership shown bottom-up by knowledge workers when they convince their bosses to adopt a new product. Neither has anything to do with managing people or the implementation of their proposals. Their leadership consists solely in the successful promotion of new directions. The implication of this line of thinking is that everything to do with getting things done and managing people must be a managerial function.
Leadership in the 21st century is no longer a fixed role. In a fluid, dynamic environment where innovation rules, leadership is only an occasional act that can come from any direction including outside the group. Showing leadership means convincing others to change direction. It is time to separate leadership and management. We need to upgrade management to take its rightful place as a constructive force for getting the best out of people and managing all resources along the lines of investment, that is to get the best possible return.
In conclusion, 21st century leadership is thought leadership, an occasional act that all employees can show even if they have no inclination to be a manager.
