We are now two decades into the 21st century and as the dust settles down, it is evident that the Fourth Industrial Revolution is fundamentally changing the way we will live, work and relate to one another. Extraordinary technological advances are ushering in a new era in human development, merging physical, digital and biological worlds in a way that renders either a tremendous promise or definite doom. The very pace and the dimension of this revolution is forcing us to change how we envisage development of individuals, societies, businesses, organizations, economies, etc., in the 21st century. But the Fourth Industrial Revolution is just not a technology-driven change; it brings with itself an opportunity to create an inclusive and human-centred future, to set our sights beyond technological advancements and find ways and means to help people develop abilities that positively impacts mankind at large.
The silver lining is that the Fourth Industrial Revolution is causing a convergence of forces that is reshaping the global economy: there is an exponential increase in the pace of innovation; new technologies are disrupting old industries and creating new ones, communication networks are spawning at astonishing speed: and global emergencies keep on erupting suddenly. Any one of these developments is having profound implications for organizations and the people who lead them.
Taken together, these forces are creating a new context for leadership starting with a dire need for developing a new mind-set based on the presupposition that radical change and uncertainty are the norm, not the exception simply because it is expected that organizations will have to adjust continually to sudden disruptive changes, competitive threats, new technologies, rapidly changing markets, business environment and customer needs.
21st Century Leadership : The Mindset Shift :
Just like a software package, our brains come with default settings—a mind-set, a set of beliefs and assumptions about how the world works. This is our internal programming. For today’s high-speed, change-driven environments, the traditional world of leadership belongs to the past. The paradigm must shift. Any organization that doesn’t make that shift is sure to be lost in the rush. What is needed is a mindset that encompasses a worldview that is compatible with change and unpredictability and assumes that change is the new norm and not an exception.
For organizations and leaders, shifting the paradigms in context of the business challenges of today entails;
- Reinventing the leadership model in a contemporary context
- Shifting our perceptions of realities and how we relate to it
- Being comfortable leading at the edge of chaos
- Having the foresight in anticipating rapid changes
- Having an ability to reach out and develop enduring bonds
- Having the courage to steer the organization through volatility and chaos
- Having the competency to see patterns in chaos and take control
- Having the ability to take bold actions and safeguard interests of the organization
- Being prepared to alter strategies
- Having the agility to stay ahead of the volatility curve
- Having the ability to spot opportunities through rapid upturns and downturns
- Having the ability to adapt to ever changing internal and external factors while maintaining the strategic focus and core vision.
The Evolving Leadership Perspective
Traditionally, organizational leadership is all about managing the known and is viewed more as a process that is stable, has its own pace and lends it selves to orderly planning. But the way forward against the intensifying fourth industrial revolution is all about managing uncertainty where leadership will be chaotic, messy, and unpredictable. Business will have to operate in turbulent environments that feature high change and high uncertainty, where the situational requirements keep constantly shifting throughout the situation in response to internal as well as external factors, such as competitive moves, new technological advancements, shifts in customer needs, changes in regulatory requirements, and general economic and political conditions.
Broadly speaking, 21st Century Leadership will take the shape of a discipline that is intended to respond to the unique challenges and opportunities that the world is throwing up every day. Going forward , success will be a matter of organizations willing to become agile, adaptive and innovative, one that is change-tolerant, has a chaos-friendly culture that recognizes and supports the special needs of different situations from traditional to extreme. Such a transformation then calls for a kind of leadership that is highly strategic in action and dwells on a well-developed mindset for gauging technological, social, political, market and economic realities of the environment in which businesses operate.
Per se, leadership is a multi-dimensional, multi-faceted discipline and therefore prone to various interpretations. Primarily 21st Century Leadership will be all about “transformation”…… all kinds of transformation. Development and practice of leadership in the 21st century calls for a massive shift in the leadership paradigm, that will draw upon and integrate knowledge and action from a wide range of disciplines and traditions to render the desired transformative change, will incorporate a very wide spectrum of values and foster a wide range of capacities, competencies, and skills that include, but are not limited to: critical, creative and systems thinking, self-awareness, communication and dialogue, social and cultural intelligence, and facilitation of team and collaborative processes.
Whatever the leadership style, objectively speaking it has to help transform the organization into an agile, adaptable, innovative, change tolerant, chaos friendly and a flexible one by developing & fostering a culture that ;
- Supports an environment of openness that values experimentation, discovery and diverse perspectives
- helps quickly detect weak signals that indicate shifts in customer preferences, customer migration, emerging opportunities enabled by new technologies
- helps conduct iterative exchange of information that puts new ideas into the context of the organization’s work and translates new information into differentiating capabilities
- helps comprehend business challenges to reveal the learning & development gaps for individuals, teams, and the organizations practices, processes and systems
- helps strengthen the decision-making agility throughout the organization
- fosters good thinking, positive energy, fluid communication and robust collaboration
- shifts people from chaos to clarity
- gains and sustains commitment of all people
- unleashes motivation & innovation
- unleashes people potential rather than control people
- facilitates management of ideas and translates them into tangible deliverables
- turns conflict into co-operation
Developing the 21st century leadership perspective entails both an inward and outward orientation, an integrative view of leadership that is based on relationships and is all about being inclusive, collaborative, and of service, to individuals, the social good, and ecological sustainability.
Jammu Navani
Organizational development, Leadership & Entrepreneurship coach, Corporate Trainer & Management Consultant
Experiential Entrepreneurship 