In the December 18, 2011 edition of the New York Times, Thomas L. Friedman wrote about the great unraveling of traditional leadership across the globe:
The main driver, I believe, is the merger of globalization and the Information Technology revolution. Both of them achieved a critical mass in the first decade of the 21st century that has resulted in the democratization — all at once — of so many things that neither weak states nor weak companies can stand up against. We’ve seen the democratization of information, where everyone is now a publisher; the democratization of war-fighting, where individuals became superempowered (enough so, in the case of Al Qaeda, to take on a superpower); the democratization of innovation, wherein start-ups using free open-source software and “the cloud” can challenge global companies.
I’ve been struck by how similar the remarks by Russians about Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who just basically reappointed himself president, are to those I heard from Egyptians about Hosni Mubarak, who kept reappointing himself president.
“The days of leading countries or companies via a one-way conversation are over,” says Dov Seidman, the C.E.O. of LRN and the author of the book “How.” “The old system of ‘command and control’ — using carrots and sticks — to exert power over people is fast being replaced by ‘connect and collaborate’ — to generate power through people.” Leaders and managers cannot just impose their will, adds Seidman. “Now you have to have a two-way conversation that connects deeply with your citizens or customers or employees.”
“As power shifts to individuals,” argues Seidman, “leadership itself must shift with it — from coercive or motivational leadership that uses sticks or carrots to extract performance and allegiance out of people to inspirational leadership that inspires commitment and innovation and hope in people.”
The role of the leader now is to get the best of what is coming up from below and then meld it with a vision from above. In Egypt, where the bottom-up democracy movement was strong enough to oust Mubarak, the country now faces the long, arduous process of building new institutions and writing a new social contract from a democracy coalition that encompass Muslim Brothers, Christian liberals, Muslim liberals, the army and ultraconservative Muslim Salafis.
Dov Seidman: How: Why How We Do Anything Means Everything
For more on emerging grassroots leadership, go to:
http://www.coachingtip.com/2011/08/emerging-grassroots-leadership.html
http://www.coachingtip.com/2011/10/good-times-goodbye-hello-deflation.html