Leadership for the future: diversity, creativity and co-creation

Values-led leaders help create emotionally and mentally healthy organisations, where business goals are met without sacrificing personal values.

Organisations need to continuously adapt if they are to survive and thrive in an increasingly volatile business environment.

Ensuring successful adaptation against a backdrop of increasing uncertainty and complexity means leadership becomes less about directive structured approaches seeking predictable outcomes and more about empowering others to make effective and timely decisions.

The ‘new norm’ of dynamic non-equilibrium in business requires a shift in conventional management thinking from over-reliance on top-down, hierarchical, risk-based approaches to managing within complexity. This style of management juggles and combines varying styles and techniques. It encourages bottom-up ideas and thinking to flourish; establishing an all-pervasive values-led work ethic whilst guiding and coaching.

Complex, adaptive, resilient businesses of the future recognise that change emerges unpredictably, and that over-arching bureaucratic mechanisms no longer assist emergent organisational evolution. The role of leadership is to actively participate in enabling and facilitating local change, by encouraging effective communications with clarity of understanding of how to act and interact. Each and every one of us plays our part in leadership of the future by helping others to co-create towards positive outcomes.

Leaders of the future unleash human potential by instilling trust through authenticity, clarity of purpose and openness to continual learning. Leaders are the learners, the ones who seek ‘personal mastery’ (as Peter Senge puts it) whilst remaining interconnected to the collective whole. Leaders are people who understand who they really are, aspire towards greatness and inspire greatness in others (not egoic greatness but soulful greatness). Leaders become teachers, taking time to assist and empower others to lead themselves. The quest for optimal leadership is about encouraging a creative tension — balancing personal mastery with openness and a deep sense of belonging amongst a diverse community of stakeholders.

You can see the original full blog article here