What’s the state of leadership, particularly as former icons have been brought down in sectors like financial services?
It, too, is evolving, but the good news is we seem to be getting past the leader-as-guru, leader-as-god, phenomenon. That doesn’t do anyone any good.
As the nature of the work force changes, from an industrial worker to a service worker to a knowledge worker, the leadership paradigm has had to shift from command and control to participatory leadership. And now it is all about herding cats, and what it takes to herd cats well.
As I suggested, what causes change is some kind of attractive future that people are drawn into, or something about their present that scares the heck out of them. Part of getting people to engage in the act of change is helping them figure out what that balance is for them, in their company and their industry. Then they realize that “I don’t like being demoralized and upset,” and so “I would rather find a way to get ahead of the curve.”
What’s the toughest thing you had to learn?
That business is much less rational than anyone really believes.
I have studied many situations where the answer seemed obvious, but the answer that emerged had a lot more to do with the dynamics of the people involved.
